


Whats in a name....

by Phoelupo



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Captivity, Electrocution, Evil Kate, Hurt Scott, Hurt Stiles, Magical Stiles Stilinski, POV Stiles, Protective Derek, Protective Scott, Protective Stiles, Starvation, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2018-10-30 02:21:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10867008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoelupo/pseuds/Phoelupo
Summary: When both Stiles and Scott test positive for the SAI-gene, common in all supernaturals, they're captured and shipped off to prison.Once there, Stiles will do everything in his power to keep his friend save. And with that starts an epic journey for survival, friendship and even a little bit of love.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: This story is still in development so the rating may change and warnings may be added over time. I’m not sure which direction this story will take yet, but there might be some slight non-con up ahead (not in main pairings). So if this is not your cup of tea, then I’d advise not to read this one. Better safe than sorry ;). 
> 
> That said, please keep in mind that this is my first story and English is not my native tongue. So be kind! And above all… enjoy!

‘No, no wait, hold on!’. Stiles tries desperately to shake off the hands that hold him too tightly, pulling him backwards.

He flails, trying to hold on to something, anything in a vain attempt to, to what? Stop this? Prove her that she is wrong? Because she is! This has all been some giant mistake, and when he gets home to his dad they’ll have a good laugh about it. Because this?, this _cannot_ be happening!

‘There’s been a mistake! I’m human!’ Stiles screams, panicked. Desperate. His breathing gets more labored with every step they take backwards, his vision starts to blur and his throat feels raw. He must have been screaming for a while now. But nobody is listening, nobody cares. Of course not, it’s not like it’s their life that has been completely torn out from under them, just to be smashed to pieces and thrown away like trash, he thinks absentmindedly. He tries desperately to pull his panicked thoughts together, to focus on the person in front of him.’ Just, just wait!’

‘Come on, just listen to me!’. His eyes lock with those of the person standing a few feet away, the distance between them getting bigger and bigger by every passing moment. And in that moment he knows, he knows, that it’s over, that he is just prolonging the inevitable. Because there is no compassion, empathy or even the tiniest flicker of guild in the eyes looking back at him. Only contempt, disgust, triumph and cold satisfaction.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t do anything wrong! Just call my dad, please, _please_! I’m not dangerous, I swear, I’m human, I’ve always been human!’. And he knows he’s begging now, but he’s desperate okay?! Once he gets through that door and once they’ve dragged him into the van, there will be no coming back anymore, ever again.

So yeah, he’s desperate, and still panicking. He tries to regulate his breathing, pull in big breaths, to stave of the panic attack that’s just around the corner. He can’t panic now, he has to focus, has to try. One last time.

While they pull him through the door he makes one last desperate plea to those cold eyes, framed by a pretty face. ‘You know me, you’ve know me for years! I’m friends with your niece for Gods sake! Just listen to me!’

‘Kate, _Kate_!’ He screams with all his might, while the first ray of sunlight hits his face. ‘You can’t do this!’

But it’s of no use. The last thing he sees of her before he is dragged around the corner, is a flash of bouncing blonde hair. Sweeping around, before she walks away. Her cackling, hollow laugh following him, bouncing off the walls, echoing, before the sound is swept away by a fresh breeze in the cold winter air.

And although he knows it’s over, Stiles still tries to escape. He tries, when he feels the cold concrete of the parking lot under his feet. He tries, when his hands are bound behind his back and a sack is put over his head. He tries, with all his might to escape, but it is of no use. There are two of them and they are way stronger than his scrawny mere sixteen year old body. But he tries.

When fighting doesn’t work he tries to reason with them. Screaming, begging, pleading for all he is worth. He keeps talking, even when he is pulled into the van, when he feels the sharp sting of a needle in his arms and hears the engine start and the doors shut. He tries to focus through the fog that’s starting to cloud his mind and keep talking. But his last words, diluted by the drugs in his system and muffled by the sack over his head, fall to deaf ears anyway.

‘ _I’m human….’_


	2. Chapter One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, head the warnings and keep in mind they may be changed/added to over the course of the story!

Have you ever had the feeling that something big is happening, but you can’t figure out what it is? That tingly feeling at the back of your mind, and you know, _know_ , something important is happening that will change your life, but you can’t put your finger on it? The world around you is changing, shifting directions, but you can’t see it yet and it drives you mad! But in the end you’ll let it go and move on, go on with what you were doing and try to ignore that ever intensifying sense of foreboding.

Only to realize later on that it _did_ happen. That the world did shift and that one moment utterly and completely changed the course of your future, your life. And you just, you just missed it!

Well, that’s exactly how Stiles felt five days ago, while he was sitting in the cafeteria with Scott. He should have listened to that feeling, he thinks wryly. If only, if only he had listened, everything might have turned out differently. But now? Now it's too late.

\------------------------------------------ 

_Five days ago…._

‘Scott, Hey Scott!’ Stiles looks down at his sandwich before breaking of a little piece of bread and throwing it at his best friend. ‘ _Scott_!!’

Scott jerks up like a shot. ‘Hey, where’d you do that for!’ he says while plucking the little piece of bread out of his unruly mob of hair. ‘Not cool man!’.

‘No, you know what’s not cool man?, that you’re not even listening to me! We only have a thirty minute break and I’m trying to tell you something important and for the last twenty minutes of said break, you’ve just been staring of at… at what exactly?’

Curiosity peaked, Stiles turns his head in the direction his best friend had been staring at just a few minutes ago. His eyes first catch on Heather. Huh, he hasn’t talked to her in a while, they should really catch up sometimes. If he remembers correctly her birthday is coming up in a few weeks, he’ll catch up with her then. If he even is invited to her party that is..

Ofcourse he’s invited! He’s Stiles, he’s awesome! But… that’s not what he was looking for. His eyes sweep over the rest of the cafeteria. The old lady who forgot her hairnet, serving the food. The boy with the backpack with a broken strap sitting alone at a table. Three girls sitting at the table next from him. A bunch of lacrosse guys on the next…

No wait, hold on, back to the girls. One petite blonde with a cute smile, and two brunettes, both sitting with their back’s to him. One has a short straight bob and the other has long, curly hair, kind of like Allison’s hair.

No wait, _exactly_ like Allison’s hair!

Stiles looks over at his best friend again, a disappointed frown on his face. ‘Seriously dude! Allison?!?, _Again_?’ He says. Scott and Allison had been off and on for the last couple of years. And if Stiles remembered it right, they should currently be on their off stage, not giving each other puppy eyes and longing gazes from across the cafeteria! ‘No seriously, I thought you just broke off with her man!’

‘Yeah I know’ Scott sighs. ‘But it was a mistake! We had a fight over nothing and she’s perfect man! We were made for each other, so I shouldn’t let a little fight get in the way right? Do you think she will give me another chance?’ He blinks at Stiles with sad, yet hopeful eyes.

Stiles looks back at him with a mix of irritation, exasperation and fondness. ‘I don’t know man, how many chances has she given you already? Twenty? Honestly dude, I just don’t think it’s mend to be!’

‘But that’s not the point! Where you listening to me at all??’ Stiles picks up his sandwich again, taking a bite while looking at Scott expectantly.

‘Huh, yeah of course I was listening! You were talking about… What were you talking about again?’ He looks back at his friend just in time for another piece of bread to hit him square on the nose. ‘Hey, cut it out stiles! Ew, were you just chewing on that piece of bread?? That’s disgusting man!’

‘Yeah well, that’s wat you get for not listening’ Stiles snickers.

‘Well I’m listening now, so don’t do it again!’ Scott said while glaring at Stiles. But there wasn’t any heat behind it, and a small smile was tugging at the corner of his mouth. ‘So, what were you telling me?’

‘Okay, so I was listening to the scanner on my way to school, cause my dad was called in earlier this morning. So it had to be something big right?’ Stiles says while taking a sip of his coke. ‘And guess what, apparently there is this dude running around stealing organs, _organs_! Can you believe that??’

Scott stares at him, mouth agape and sandwich hovering midway between his mouth and the table. ‘Are you serious? Why? What happened?’

‘Well apparently it’s been going on for a while now, but this morning the guy struck again. He assumedly dug up some fresh graves last night, and stole their hearts right out of their chests! That’s some bad shit man! So, I was thinking.. ‘

‘Oh no, no no no no no!’ Scott says. ‘Everytime you say that, I get in trouble..’

‘Aw man, that’s not true! Twenty percent of the time it’s your own damn fault you get in trouble!’ Stiles says while giving Scott a wounded glare. ‘But no, I promise you man, nothing can go wrong this time, nothing!’

‘I was just thinking, we should check it out!’ Stiles says excitedly. ‘The guy is long gone, I promise you, there’s only a couple of dug up graves there. They’re scheduled to be reburied tomorrow. So we have to go today!’

‘And then what? What is the point of going there anyway?’ Scott watches him with a doubtful look on his face.

‘Well they didn’t manage to find any useful clues yet. So I thought, we should check it out. You never know man, a pair of fresh eyes on the scene, and don't forget your ' _special abilities_ '', Stiles air quotes and winks at Scott. 'Maybe we’ll find something useful! It’ll be awesome!’

‘And you know, if we found something.. it would really help out my dad!’ Stiles grins at Scott.

Scott gives him the stink eye. ‘Yeah sure… all of this, just for your dad right..?’

‘Aw… don’t be that way man! It will be awesome!..’ Stiles says excitedly, but at the look Scott gives him he tampers down on his excitement and puts on a straight, serious face. ‘Awesomely… helpful, awesomely helpful that is!’ Stiles says while shooting Scott a cheeky smile.

‘So… what do you say bro? You, me and some heartless dead body’s after school today?’ Stiles says while he looks at Scott with barely hidden excitement on his face.

‘Okay fine, but I can’t go after school, I have to get to Deaton’s, I have the afternoon shift’ Scott says with a frown on his face.

‘Aww, Okay, that’s a bummer’ Stiles says. ‘But what about after? We can go tonight, that’ll be even more fun too!’

Scott groans loudly and looks at Stiles in resignation. ‘Fine, I’ll come with you. Come pick me up after my shift okay? We can just put my bike in the back’.

Stiles gives Scott a broad smile while stuffing the last of his sandwich in his mouth and clapping Scott on the shoulder. ‘Awesome! Now grab your bag man, the bell is about to ring. We’ve got chemistry and if we’re late again, Harris will give us detention for sure and that would really screw up our plans!’ Stiles says while grabbing his own backpack and weaving his way through the throng of students, to the exit of the cafeteria.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------

By the time they finally got to the graveyard, it was nearly dark out. ‘Come on man, this is a bad idea! It’s already dark out, we should just come back tomorrow!’ Scott complains while Stiles shuts the engine off.

‘Ah naw man, it’s not a problem!’. Stiles grabs his backpack and pulls two rectangular black items from it and shoves one of them at Scott’s chest. ‘See, I brought flashlights, it’ll be no problem!’ He says cheerfully while opening his door and exiting.

Scott groans loudly, but after a moment of reluctant hesitation he exits the car too and trails after Stiles. ‘Stiles, I’ve got a bad feeling about this! We should just go back and play some video games or something!’

Stiles grins at him devilishly. ‘No man, this will be way more fun, trust me!’.

‘Yeah, that’s what you always say, right before something goes wrong’ Scott whines, but trails after Stiles none the less.

They’ve been walking for about five minutes, zigzagging their way through the graveyard, before Stiles comes to an abrupt stop. ‘Look, were already here’ He says while shining his flashlight on the yellow police tape cordoning of the crime scene. ‘No turning back now!’

Stiles ducks underneath the tape and makes his way to the nearest grave. He shines his flashlight around the crimescene a few times before jumping in to the grave and trying to open the casket inside. ‘Aw shit, they sealed them. That’s a bummer’ He sighs before climbing back out.

He walks around the graves, while looking intently, searchingly at the ground. ‘What exactly are we looking for anyway?’ Scott asks while shining his flashlight on the second coffin, finding a seal there too.

‘Evidence! I don’t know, it could be anything. A footprint, a piece of cloth, anything! So stop complaining and start searching! Stiles answers. ‘’ Oh and don’t forget to use your wolfy senses man! Maybe there’s some scent trace left we could follow or something….’ Stiles trailed off, focusing on the little peace of paper sticking out of the grass.

Scott heaves one more heavy sight before slumping in resignation and trudging over to were his friend is picking up what looks to be a peace of a candy wrapper. This is gonna be a long night…..

\-----------------------------------------------------

Well, that’s exactly the feeling Stiles has had since they had to leave the graveyard in a hurry last night and he and Scott got separated. And that’s what he’s feeling now while gaping at his best friend in shock. ‘What do you mean you called the authorities??’ Stiles exclaims while looking at his best friend in shock. They had had to leave the graveyard in a hurry last night and he and Scott got separated. But since he hadn't heard anything from his best friend after that, Stiles had assumed Scott got home okay. Apparently not, he thinks wryly, while looking at his friend questioningly, demandingly, but he gets no response.

‘Scott…., Scott, hey! Look at me man… look at me!’ Stiles clasps his friends face between his hands and tries to look him in the eye. But all that’s staring back at him is a haze of panic.

‘Okey, okey’ Stiles looks around the locker room and notices to his relieve that it’s completely abandoned, except for the two of them. He grasps his still panicking friend by the shoulders and steers him to the nearest wall. Stiles pushes him down to the floor and guides Scott’s head between his knees.

‘Okay, just breathe man… just breathe’ Stiles says while kneeling in front of him. He takes one of Scott’s hands and places it on his own chest. ‘Just breathe with me Scott, just follow my breathing’ he says while his other hand is frantically searching in his backpack he had dropped next to him. ‘Just in and out, easy does it. Come on Scott, I know you can do it!’ he tries to encourage his friend. And although his breathing did slow a bit down to slightly erratic, instead of the full blown panic attack, Scott still looked the worse for wear.

He was pale and shaky and tiny drops of sweat were forming at his temple while he wheezed in another lungful of air. ‘Just follow my breathing, breathe in… one two three four…’, Stiles breathes in exaggeratedly. ‘And out.. one two three four… That’s it, you’re doing fine, just hold on Scotty, it’s almost over’ Stiles says while his fingers finally, _finally_ find the object he was looking for. He pulls the object out whit a triumphant shout and pushes the inhaler in Scott’s direction.

‘Here, just breathe okay, take this, it will help’ Stiles tries to encourage his best friend. But Scott just looks up at him with foggy eyes and takes in another wheezing breath.

‘Okay, okay fine, here I’m gonna help you okay’ he says while he takes Scott’s free hand, pushes the inhaler more firmly in it and guides it to his mouth. An action they have done a dozen of times since childhood. And apparently somewhere in Scott’s brain he must remember that, because he seems to go on autopilot. He lifts the inhaler further to his mouth and takes a puff.

Scott bows his head again and drops the inhaler to the floor with a shaky hand, the other still remaining firmly on Stiles’ chest. He just sits there for a minute, breathing deeply.

After what feels like hours, but was probably only a few minutes, Scott finally looks up at him. “Thank you’, he rasps out, eyes full of gratitude.

He picks up the inhaler and stares at it for a long moment. When he looks back at stiles, his gaze is questioning. ‘I haven’t needed this in years man, what are you still doing with it?’

‘Well… ‘’ Stiles shuffles back a little. After a moment’s hesitation he goes to sit beside Scott against the wall. ‘It’s only been two years man… ‘, he says while awkwardly scratching the back of his neck. ‘And anyway, after all the times it saved you, I just… I just couldn’t throw it away’. Stiles looks at the floor intently.  

When he feels a hand patting his knee he looks up again to see his best friend smiling at him. ‘Well thanks man, I’m glad you kept it’, he says. With so much honesty, gratitude and slight admiration in his gaze that Stiles has to look away again.

They sit there for a few more minutes, just sharing the moment, before Stiles starts to get restless again. ‘So…. Why where you panicking anyway?’ he asks while looking back at Scott.

This seems to startle Scott out of his thoughts because he jerks up a little. ‘Well, I just, I .. you know last night.. and.. ‘ he babbles, and the edge of panic is creeping back in his voice.

‘Okay, okay, just slow down man, start at the beginning okay’. Stiles says while eyeing the inhaler again.

He waits a moment, shivering in the cold air, intensified by the chill creeping in from the wall he is leaning against. But when Scott still hasn’t answered his question after a few more seconds, he picks the conversation back up.

‘Just think back to the beginning okay. We were at the graveyard last night, searching for clues that would help my dad catch the thief. But we didn’t find jackshit, and in the end we had to flee out of there, cause someone must have called it in, and my dad showed up. So we ran, and got split up. I managed to get home okay, and I thought so did you’. He sights. ‘So tell me, what happened? You were running the opposite direction, and then?..’ he says while looking at Scott expectantly.

‘Well…’ Scott fidgets and stares at the wall opposite him, thinking back of the night before. ‘We got split up, and I headed for the woods. I thought, you know, I could make a loop around the graveyard, get back to the main road. But at the end of the graveyard I managed to catch a scent…’ Scott trails off while staring dazedly back at the wall.

‘Hey, Scott! Look at me man!’ Stiles snaps two fingers in front of his friends face. Which seems to have the desired effect because Scotts head snaps back in his direction with a startled look on his face.

‘Focus man, what scent?, and what happened next?’ His tone laced through with curiosity and worry, but also with a little bit of excitement. Cause this? This could be the clue they were searching for to help his dad!

He stares at his friend expectantly, only to see the dazed look of remembrance on Scotts face morph into one of confusion and dread. ‘I don’t know man, there was just, there was just something off about it. I couldn’t put my finger on it at first. It just smelled wrong, and got my wolf al antsy’.

‘But there was also something alluring about it, something drawing me in’. He looks pensive for a moment. ‘It was like the scent was calling for me, calling my wolf….’

In the background the first bell rings, signaling lunchtime is over, but neither boys pays it any mind.

‘So I followed it you know… I just,.. I just couldn’t leave it. So I followed it. It was about ten minutes into the woods before the scent trail ended. But it had also gotten a lot stronger’.

‘So either it got swept away by the wind and broke off, or, more likely, the source must have been close by?’.

“Yeah that’s what I figured. So I went looking for the source. I thought maybe the person had left something behind, or maybe dropped something you know. So I expected to find a piece of clothing, or a backpack maybe. But not a….’ Scott swallows thickly, breathing in a few steadying breaths, looking down at the ground ‘Not a… body’.

Stiles looks back at his friend so fast it has probably given him whiplash or something. ‘Wait, _what_?!?’ he exclaims, while gaping at his best friend in shock. ‘So…. You’re telling me… that you found a freaking _body_ in the woods last night, and you’re just telling me about this _now_?!?’

Scott stares back at him a little sheepishly, tiny flickers of guilt forming in his eyes.

‘What is wrong with you man??’ Scott looks back down to the ground, while Stiles sights dramatically. ‘Wait, never mind. That’s not what’s important here. You found a dead body in the woods…’ He trails off, inhaling sharply ‘did you check to make sure he was really dead?’

‘No wait.. more importantly, did you know who it was? Was it someone we know? Knew?’. Stiles clasps his hands on his knees and cocks his head, listening intently.

‘No, I didn’t know who he was. I’ve never seen him before’ Scott whispers while looking at him with pained, sorrowful eyes. He draws in a deep, encouraging breath and goes on more loudly. ‘And yeah I’m pretty sure he was dead. I mean, I didn’t check or anything, but I’m fairly sure nobody could have survived getting their throat ripped out… ‘

Stiles whistles an Scott waits a beat. The air thickening around them, Stiles almost vibrating next to him.

‘So?... and what happened then? Then you called the authorities right?’ Stiles asks Scott expectantly, a small frown on his face.

‘Yeah I did. But… but you don’t understand!’ Scott says frustrated, and still a little bit panicked. He slumps forward and takes his head in his hands, leaning on his knees and pulling at his hair in irritation. ‘Ugh…!’ he exhales, and then sniffs deeply.

‘I shouldn’t have done that… so stupid, I shouldn’t have done that!’ He looks back again with trepidation and anxiety marring his face. But there is also an undertone of desperation, both in his words as in his gaze, which Stiles has only seen once there before: the day Scott told him his dad was leaving them.

Stiles shuffles a bit closer to his friend. An instinctive reaction to comfort. ‘I don’t understand… you did the right thing man’.

‘No, you don’t understand… I called them. That was my first instinct and that is what your dad thought us. Never disturb a crime scene and call it in immediately. So I did.. I called them…. But I… I should have taken a closer look first, should have noticed it sooner. Hell, I should have noticed it the moment I picked up the scent trail!’

Scott is starting to panic again. Pulling his hair in desperation, breathing speeding up again. ‘I should have noticed, it was so obvious.. so stupid… I should have… I should have…’

And he is breathing in shallow, wheezing breaths now. ‘I should have… But I didn’t… and now… and… because… because Stiles… _Stiles_!’

Stiles can do nothing but look back at his friend at that. Their gazes lock, and there is such an intensity behind Scott’s gaze, in the air floating between them, that Stiles feels it like an electric current running up his spine. And he shivers, but doesn’t dare look away.

And Scott holds his gaze, the intensity thickening by the minute, trying to convey all Scotts emotions between them: shock, sorrow, determination, curiosity, realization and then slowly morphing into trepidation, panic and desperation, when he finally, _finally_ , whispers the words Stiles has been waiting for.

‘Stiles… that man.. he wasn’t… he wasn’t human…’, he breathes out.

‘He was a werewolf….’


	3. Chapter two

'Oh this is bad... this is so bad!' Stiles exclaimed while nervously pacing the locker room. He looks down at his friend, who had remained seated against the wall while Stiles had his own little nervous breakdown.

'Stiles! Calm down!' Scott wheezed while still trying to control his own breathing. 'You're not helping...!' He looked at his friend pleadingly.

Stiles stopped pacing at that. He looked at his friend again before nervously raking his fingers through his too short hair. He huffed out a breath and slit down against the wall opposite of Scott.

He looked down at his clasped hands, needing a minute to collect his thoughts. Then he looked back up at Scott again and heaved a deep sight.

'Okay... it’s gonna be okay'  he whispered, more to convince himself than to convince Scott. He looked up at Scott intently. ‘Did the police… no wait, tell me you at least came to your senses after you called the police, and hid the body…’

‘No… no I..’ Scott looks at him guiltily. Desperately. ‘I… I panicked okay. I called.. and then I realized how stupid that was and then I panicked, so I ran.

I ran.. I just, I had to get away. I thought if they found the body and they found me there… they’d find out. Eventually they’d find out I was one of them, too. And then It’d be all over… they’d take me away. And I would never see you again, or Allison. I’d never see my _mom_ again!’ Scott’s gaze boars into Stiles, willing him to understand.

‘So I panicked, I ran. By the time I could think straight again, figured It’d be better if they didn’t find a body at all…it was too late. I’d already heard the sirens pass me by. By the time I would have made it back, the police would have already been all over the crime scene.’ He sniffed.

‘Stiles, what if they call the ASF?’ Scott looks at him, desperation shimmering the surface again. ‘What if they come here? Then they’ll still find out… they’ll find me… that’s what they _do!_ ’ Scott takes in a shuddering breath.

And sure, Scott had good reason to be worried, scared even. The Anti Supernatural Federation was known for their hunting skills, for finding and capturing supernaturals, every last one of them… but still.. they wouldn’t, _couldn’t_ give up that easily.

‘Hey, look at me man!’ Stiles urges. 'It's gonna be okay, Scott. I’ll call my dad, find out what he knows. Maybe he was the one working the scene, and if so he wouldn’t have called in the ASF, you _know_ that! And even if someone _did_ call them, we planned for this remember?' He said while he held Scotts gaze.

'We have a whole plan in place... specially for this. It’s a bit sooner than we planned for, sure. But still… we'll just follow the plan and it will all be okay'.

He held Scotts gaze intently until he saw the desperation slowly making way for a tentative determination.

‘It’ll all be okay’.

\------------------

But it wasn't going to be okay, Stiles thought frantically while running out of the house and throwing himself in his jeep. Turned out his dad hadn’t worked the scene last night, some rooky did. Travis, if Stiles remembered correctly. By the time his dad had shown up at the crime scene, Travis had already called in the ASF, as was protocol. But his dad had said the ASF wasn’t scheduled to arrive till later this evening. So they still had a bit of time left and they had a plan. They even had a good plan, if Stiles could say so himself.  They spent yesterday evening going over it a few more times, him, Scott, his dad and Mellissa, just to make sure it really was airtight.

And they had really thought it was. But when do things ever go according to plan?? They should have known better, Stiles thinks while narrowly missing a red light. They should have known something would screw with their plan. They should have planned better, factored in all the things that could have gone wrong… plan for contingencies.

And boy is this one hell of a contingency… Stiles thinks wryly while taking the last turn to the high school. Things were going so, so very wrong…

They had come up with the plan months ago. They’d started planning the moment the ASF had gained even more power and had started implementing the law enforcing mandatory routine blood tests of all citizens under the age of eighteen.

They’d already had a plan in place for when the ASF would eventually come to town and for if Scott was discovered. They planned out all possible escape routes and made sure Scott had a few different options where he could go if it came to that. People who he could call for help, who could hide him for a while. And places he could hang low on his own. With enough food, water, money and supplies there to last him for a few months.

But that was only for extreme emergencies, when there was no other way to keep Scott save. Till then they would do everything in their power to keep Scotts nature a secret. So that’s what they focused on when the bloodlaw, as they called it, was enforced.

The ASF saw supernaturals as abominations, as nothing more than wild animals. Dangerous wild animals, who needed to be captured or put down before they could hurt themselves or others. They had started out years ago as a fanatical group of hunters. But at first they were written off as harmless pureblooded fanatics. Sure they protested, put out flyers, attracted some followers, but it never went any further than that, and nobody paid any mind to them. Nor did they the supernaturals that coexisted amongst them.

Till two years ago that is. When two little girls were killed, the ASF made it very public that supernaturals were to blame. And since they had enough evidence to sustain their claim, people finally started to listen to them. Their support grew, and with that, a rift started between the supernaturals and the humans.

When another incident happened a few months later, it worked as a kind of catalyst. The tension that had slowly started to build up between the supernaturals and the humans, escalated. The little flame became a wildfire. People started accusing each other, retaliating for what had happened. Violence was met with even more violence, which led to an increasing number of deaths. Peaceful protests became full on riots, became the beginning of a civil war. Fear an chaos reigned, and the ASF used that chaos to make a grab for power.

And they succeeded. Even if humans outnumbered supernaturals by about ten to one, people were scared. In between the increasingly violent outbursts, supernaturals had shown their true nature, and they could no longer be trusted to live among humans. At least that’s what the ASF claimed. They were also the first ones to call for action, and with that, lead by example.

And that’s what’s made people follow them, Stiles supposes. When people are scared, they want someone they can look up to, depend on. Someone who is not afraid to take action and who inspires people to do the same. It’s human nature to follow such a leader in a time of crisis. Because such a leader makes you feel save, makes you feel like you’ve got back a little bit of control over all the chaos around you. It gives you purpose, a focus and a common goal. It’s human nature and the ASF played right in to that.

So it’s no wonder they rose to power so quickly. And it was like they had _known_ this would happen, because they seemed to already have a whole plan in place. Just a few weeks after the ASF took power, they started separating the supernaturals from the humans. And after a few more weeks separation turned into segregation. Supernaturals were only allowed to live in specific sectioned off area’s across the country. Any supernatural caught outside of those area’s was incarcerated immediately. And all supernaturals were required to identify themselves as such.

Identification was first implemented by means of a stamp on the ID of said person. But it soon turned out that was too easy to temper with and all supernaturals had to subject themselves to be marked.

All above the age of sixteen were branded with a bright hot capital S on the right wrist. And if you didn’t comply, or if you couldn’t identify yourself you were incarcerated and shipped off to one of the quickly emerging prison camps. The power of the ASF grew and they ruled with a harsh hand. More and more laws and restrictions were laid upon the supernaturals, and more and more people were shipped off, never to be seen again.

This escalated further and further, till the supernatural community was so small, there was barely anyone left. And in the end, even those last few were shipped off as well. It was for their own safety, was said. They were better off in a structured, closed off environment, among their own kind….

Stiles had always thought that was a load of bullshit. And even more so after Scott got bitten. Supernaturals weren’t considered humans. But Scott had more humanity in him, proven it time and time again, than the average human being. And if they still wanted to call Scott a monster, then what did that make them?

Hypocrites, Stiles supposes, as he drives up to the school parking lot. The ASF hadn’t managed to capture all supernaturals. Some of them had escaped. Most of them went into hiding, but a few of them tried to fight back, tried to start up a resistance. But they were brutally squashed before they even managed to make their first move. And then there were the few supernaturals, alpha werewolves mostly, who had lost everything in the war, their home, their family, their _pack_ , and as a result, became omega’s. Rabids, they were called.

Some had still some slivers of humanity left and tried desperately to fill the void, create a new pack. Others had lost all sense of humanity and had become the monsters the ASF had made them all out to be. Although the two are completely different, they had the same result: newly bitten and turned wolves.

And those were a lot harder to detect, since they were already integrated into human society, had been born into it. Some lost control during the first full moons and were captured easily. But others, like Scott, managed to gain control quickly and were hiding in plain sight.

The ASF had known about this all along, and in retaliation they had started implementing the bloodlaw. They introduced mandatory blood tests in all high schools, as well as in all hospitals. Their effort was mainly focused on teens between the age of twelve and eighteen. Because of their youth they had the most chance of survival and because of that they were most often the target of a rabid wolf. The testing had started in the mayor cities, moving from north to south.

They’d been going at it for a few months now, and Stiles had estimated it would take at least another three months before they were scheduled to arrive in Beacon Hills. But Scott calling in the dead wolf in the woods had sped up their time table considerably. The ASF were on any traces of supernaturals, like moths were to flames.

Stiles parks his car and turns of the engine. He almost falls out of his car, in his haste to get to the back of the school.  They had a plan…. But the ASF had to screw that up too. They figured that if the ASF was arriving this evening, they would start testing tomorrow. Mellissa had integrated herself in the hospitals blood bank. Not her favorite task, but it would come in handy when the ASF would come knocking. Since Melissa was one of the senior staff nurses, and now also involved in the blood bank, she would be the logical choice to be one of the nurses to help assist the ASF with their routine blood tests.

And when rumors had reached the hospital last night, and the nurses had started to talk about who would go, Melissa was one of the first ones to volunteer. That was the hardest part of the plan, getting Melissa in on the roster. The rest was fairly easy. Well, not easy, but it was all in the preparation, and they had prepared well.

The ASF had a set plan for how they did things. They would recruit some of the local nurses to assist in the blood tests, while they handled the security themselves. Once all the students were inside, the school was closed off, and no one was allowed out before giving off a blood sample.

The blood samples were carefully labeled and put in coolers. The coolers were sealed with a padlock, and only the nurses in charge would get a key to them. After all the blood samples were taken, the nurses would take their coolers into separate vans. The van would be closed off and secured from the outside, so only the nurse in charge of the cooler would be in the van. The cooler would be double checked and the nurse would be searched before going into the van. The nurse also had to turn in their key before entering the van. After that the van was sealed and they’d be driven to the nearest ASF research facility, which was two hours away from Beacon Hills.

They’d figured the best opportunity, the _only_ opportunity for Melissa to tamper with the blood samples, was when she was in the van with the cooler. The only problem was, she wouldn’t have the key to the cooler and there was no way she’d be able to smuggle in another blood sample without the ASF noticing. So that’s where the preparation came in.

Figuring out how to tamper with Scott’s blood sample was fairly easy. The students would be divided by class, and every nurse would be assigned two or three classes to get samples from. Melissa would only have to make sure that she’d assign Scotts class to herself. And since her son was in that class, no other nurse would question it. So she’d be in the van with the cooler with Scott’s blood in it.

Polluting the blood sample was not an option, since there would be enough traces left to identify it with. Besides it’d be fairly obvious the sample had been tampered with. So the only option was to switch it out. Since it would be very conspicuous if she’d just happen to carry around a random vial of blood with her, they’d have to hide it.

So Stiles came with the ingenious idea (if he’d say so himself) to hide a vial of blood in the inside of the tube of a pen. Melissa always had a few extra pens stashed in the back pocket of her medical bag, so it wouldn’t be anything suspicious. Especially since they probably wouldn’t even search her stuff, since she wouldn’t be able to do anything without the key to the cooler.

And that’s where the hard part started.. the key. In the end it was his dad who came with a solution to that particular problem. His dad had done some extensive research into the coolers themselves, the kind of locks they had, the manufacturer, but also all the people who worked for ASF and had access to those keys. And that’s when he stumbled over the name Alan Deaton. The name sounded fairly familiar to him so he asked around a bit, discreetly of course. Turned out the guy used to live in Beacon Hills and also was an old family friend of one of his deputies, Jordan Parrish.

Through Jordan he managed to learn a bit more about him. Turned out Alan used to be the emissary of the Hale pack. A family of werewolves who used to live in Beacon Hills as well, and one of the first families who were entirely wiped out when the civil war started. They all burned to death in their family home after the house caught on fire. Officially the fire was ruled an accident, caused by an electrical malfunction. But everybody knew that wasn’t true, that it was set on purpose.

So what was a guy like Alan Deaton, a formerly know werewolf sympathizer, former _emissary_ , doing working for the ASF? According to Parrish, rumor had it that the guy was an inside man for the Nox, an infamous pro supernatural resistance movement, calling themselves the soldiers of the night. So Stiles’ dad had reached out to Alan tentatively. And although it had been a very, _very_ , slow process, both men had come to a mutual trust, and Alan had promised to help. In fact, it had been Alan who had called them yesterday, informing them the ASF would arrive later this evening. And it also had been Alan who had delivered a copy of the key to the coolers to their agreed upon drop site that same evening.

So now they had the key, and Melissa had also drawn some of Stiles’ blood last night, since he and Scott had the same blood type and were about the same age and gender. So even though the time table had sped up significantly, they had all the key elements in place, and they were ready.

Only it turned out they weren’t ready _at all_ , Stiles thought while making his way around the school. Ducking behind cars and trees to stay out of sight from the soldiers who were already starting to cordon off the area around the school.

He breathed out a sight of relieve when he spotted Melissa behind one of the dumpsters. He looked around, making sure he wasn’t seen, before he ran the last few meters from the edge of the parking lot, to were the dumpsters were situated.

Melissa was on him the moment he was out of sight of the school entrance. She pulled him into a tight hug, almost squeezing the life out of him, while letting out a shuddering breath, the wind of it ghosting across Stiles’ ear. ‘Thank God you were late today…’ she said shakily. ‘They’ve already closed of all the entrances, and blocked all incoming or outgoing communication. I can’t get a hold of Scott…’ she said while releasing Stiles, to lean back slightly and look intently into his eyes.

‘Stiles I…. I couldn’t get in… ‘, she breathed, desperation and guild marring her too pale face. ‘We weren’t expecting them till the evening. So to make sure I got a double shift, so I’d be covering tonight and tomorrow, I pulled myself off the roster for today…’ She looked at Stiles desperately. ‘I already tried to get inside, explain that as a senior nurse, it was my duty to oversee events like this. But they wouldn’t budge, said they already had the required amount of people inside and they couldn’t bring in any more’.

‘Stiles…’ she grasped his shoulders desperately, holding on too tight. ‘I’ve got everything… I’ve got the key hidden in my shoe, I’ve got your blood sample in my bag… but I can’t get inside. I can’t get to Scott! And if I can’t switch out his samples, he’ll be discovered, he’ll be taken away!’

Stiles slowly grasped both of her hands with his own, fighting hard to not give in to the same forlorn desperation that was consuming Melissa at the moment. He closed his eyes, and they just stood there, breathing together for a minute, while Stiles used the rhythmic howling of the wind and Melissa’s warm touch to ground himself.

‘No… no, we’re not giving up yet’, he opened his eyes and looked up at her, a growing sense of determination filling the empty space the slowly diminishing desperation had left in its wake. ‘We can still fix it. The plan will still work, we only have to get you inside’.

Stiles stared at her for a minute, thinking. His face pensive. ‘Do you know who took your place? Who took over the classes you were assigned too?’ he looked at her questioningly.

‘No I don’t … ‘she rubbed a hand over her face, grimacing. ‘No wait… Fjenna, the nurse at the reception, said they called in Amy this morning, to cover my shift. So she must have taken over my assigned classes too.’

‘Okay… so… how do we get you and Amy to switch places? What would it take to have Amy pulled out of there? Like, does she have kids or….’, Stiles trailed off.

‘What? What do you mean does she have ki….wait.. no, _no_ Stiles, we are not using her kids to get het called out of there!’ she looked at him admonishingly. ‘I can’t believe you just suggested that!’.

‘Well… I was just thinking! I wasn’t suggesting we’d hurt them or anything…’

‘Yeah well, the only reason she’d be called out for her kids is when one of them was sick or got hurt. So that idea is off the table… ‘ she trailed off. ‘What about an accident? A house fire or something? That’d get her out of there’.

‘No, that’d be too obvious…. The ASF comes to town after the dead body of a werewolf was discovered… only to have one of the nurses taking the blood samples called out because of a house fire… that’s too much of a coincidence, they’ll look right through that….’

‘Well… then do you have any better ideas?’ Melissa looks at him, a mixture of indignation and expectation in her gaze.

‘Yeah… yeah maybe I do…. What about her husband? Isn’t he the town drunk?’ he asks her.

‘Yes he is, comes in at least once a month with mild to severe alcohol poisoning too.’, she sights. Poor Amy. ‘But why is that relevant, what are you getting at?’ She looks at Stiles expectantly.

‘Well.. if he’s already a regular at the hospital, it wouldn’t be too strange if he was brought in again right?’

‘No, that’s not gonna work, it’s too early in the day for him to…..’ She trailed off, looking pensive for a moment. ‘No wait, that actually could work! Stiles, you’re a genius!’ She said excitedly, while reaching a hand out towards him. ‘Here, give me your phone, I left mine in the car’.

‘Thanks… no wait… what? What could work? What are you talking about?’ He asked confused, while reaching into his pocket and handing her his phone. She grabbed it and immediately started dialing, ignoring his questions. ‘Wait… what’s the plan? Who are you ca…..’ Melissa shushed him with a finger in the air.

‘Hi John, it’s Melissa. Yeah, yeah Stiles is with me, he’s fine. It’s Scott I’m calling about…’ She was silent for a few moments. ‘So you’ve heard? I’m standing outside the school right now, but they won’t let me in and Scott’s already inside…’ she trailed off and Stiles strained his neck to try and hear what is father was saying at the other end of the line.

‘Yeah no I was. But I took today off to make sure I could pull a double shift tonight, so I’d be there when the ASF shows up. I just didn’t count on them showing up this early’ She chuckled mirthlessly. Stiles laid a comforting hand on her shoulder, while trying to shuffle closer to her.

‘No Amy took my shift, so like I said I can’t get in. I tried, but they said they had all the personnel they needed’.  She said. And then she was quiet for a few moments, listening intently to wat the sheriff was saying on the other end. Al the wile Stiles was trying to get even closer, to hear what his dad was saying. Almost hanging off Melissa’s shoulder now, breathing down her neck.

That is, till Melissa shoved his hand off her shoulder and took a few steps back, a disgruntled look on her face. ‘Hold on a second John, I’m gonna put you on speaker so Stiles can hear too’.

It was silent a few seconds, before his dad’s voice came through. ‘So like I said, we need to find a way to get you in the school, otherwise the plan won’t work’.

‘Yes that’s what we figured. The only way for me to get in, and to get assigned to Scott’s class, is to get Amy out’.

‘Yeah, so we were thinking..’ Stiles piped up, ‘remember Amy’s husband, dad? He’s always at the towns cavern and he’s been a regular in the hospital for the last couple of years. Always brought in with some form of alcohol poisoning every so often’.

‘And they always call Amy when that happens’, Melissa took over. ‘So all we need to do is get Amy’s husband to the hospital with symptoms similar to alcohol poisoning. Nobody will suspect a thing, and they’ll call Amy out for it.’

‘Yeah I know Joe, he’s a regular troublemaker too. But how are we going to do that?’ The sheriff  asked. ‘It’s not even nine o’clock in the morning, there’s no way he’ll already have consumed so much alcohol to come even close to alcohol poisoning. And wouldn’t it look suspicious if he was brought in this early?’.

‘No, it’s happened before. Sometimes he’ll just stay through the whole night, much to Amy’s chagrin, and drink himself into a stupor come morning. So if we’re lucky he’ll already be half unconscious. But that’s actually why I called you. I need you to drive by my house and get the sleeping pills out of my medicine cabinet. Then I need you to find Joe, and give them to him. If he’s already half gone, just give him one. If he’s still somewhat cognizant, give him two. I don’t know how you do it, make up some excuse to be there, and put them in his drink or offer him a bottle of water or something, but make sure he really takes them. He’ll be out like a light in about thirty minutes after that’.

‘yeah, I can manage that. I’ll sent in Parish half an hour after I leave, with some follow up questions or something, just to make sure the pills took and Joe’s shipped off to the hospital. That could work. Are you sure they’ll be calling Amy out for that?’ John asked.

‘Yes, they always call her, just in case. Besides, it’s protocol’.

‘Okay then, I’ll get it done. I’ll call you as soon as I’m done okay? And Stiles, you better be in school by the time I call again, you’re already late!’

Stiles groaned and looked to Melissa for help. ‘No your dad is right Stiles. Actually, you need to get inside as fast as possible. We need to avoid any and all suspicion. The fact that you’re late is already suspicious enough’ she admonished.

‘Yeah okay, you’re right. Just… text me okay… when you know more, both of you’.

‘Will do son, love you’.

‘Love you too dad’, Stiles said, while picking up his backpack. ‘Be careful’.

And with that he turned around and strode away, making his way back to the front of the school. Not knowing that those would be the last words he would say to his dad for a long, long time.


	4. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for leaving comments and kudos! I really appreciate it! So here is the next chapter. I tried to pick up the pace a little, and I think I succeeded fairly well :) So please let me know what you think!

The plan actually went off without a hitch. Stiles got into the school fairly easily. He had never been a stellar student, so a little white lie about his car breaking down _again_ , making him late for school, was easily believed.  After he had shown the agents stationed in front of the school his ID, and it was confirmed that he was, in fact, a Beacon Hills high school student, he was escorted to his classroom and told to wait with the others.

Scott was already there, panicking silently, if the too large pupils, frightened gaze and sweaty brow were any indications. He’d played it off as a fear of needles to his classmates, but Stiles knew better than that. They’d grown up together, were practically brothers in all but name, and Stiles knew Scott almost as good as he knew himself.

He made his way over to his friend quickly and filled him in on the new plan. This seemed to calm him down a bit, but the panic returned twenty minutes later, when nurse Amy came in to collect their blood. Stiles was actually getting worried himself a little bit by the time she called Scott forward and Melissa still hadn’t shown up.

This went on for a while longer. By the time a girl named Ashley Simmons was called forward he finally, _finally_ , heard the door open. One of the ASF agents stepped into the classroom and talked to nurse Amy silently for a few minutes. Stiles couldn’t hear what was being said , but the fact that Amy walked out of the classroom shortly after must be a good sign.

And it was. After ten more minutes of waiting, Melissa entered the classroom, explaining that nurse Amy had to leave and she’d be taking over. Since she only had to do a few more students, Stiles being among the last of them, she finished up quickly and left the classroom without another word. After that, all they could do was wait.

When all the blood tests were done, classes resumed as normal.

And if Stiles was barely able to sit still, let alone focus on anything that was said… well he wasn’t the only one. There was a nervous energy in the air and even the teachers were a bit distracted.

Merely an hour after classes had started up again, the communication in and out of the school was restored and another two hours later they _finally_ received a text from Melissa. It was short and to the point, but it said all it needed to say, all Stiles wanted to hear….

‘It’s done’

And with that, both he and Scott heaved a sight of relieve, releasing the tension that had slowly been building up for the last couple of hours. It was done, they were save. _Scott_ was save! Stiles smiled at his best friend, and a smile full of relieve, full of gratitude, answered him back.

After classes it was announced that all students had to stay in school untill the results of the blood tests came back. Estimation was that’d be early morning the next day, so all students were required to stay the night. Camping beds were being set up in the gyms and some of the larger classrooms.

Stiles and Scott were assigned to one of the classrooms, and Stiles was glad for it. It’d be less crowded, less noisy, so they actually may have a chance at getting some sleep.

After that announcement, they were escorted to the cafeteria, where they met up with Allison and some other kids. One of them had managed to find a deck of cards and they spent most of their evening playing poker.

It was like a giant weight was lifted off their shoulders and both Stiles and Scott had to try really hard to not let their elation and excitement show. Most kids weren’t worried, cause they knew what the results would be. But to be overly happy, well let’s just say that really didn’t fit the scene either. They would attract unwanted attention for sure.

So even though Stiles thought he might actually burst from all the remaining nervous energy, now transformed into giddy relieve, he tampered down on his emotions and tried to hold himself in check. And from the looks of it, Scott was trying really hard to do the same. For the most part, apart from the weard looks Allison was shooting Scott now and then, they actually managed to succeed. 

Around ten a.m. it was announced that all students had to retire to their assigned sleeping areas. So Stiles and Scott made their way up to the second floor where their classroom was situated. They shared the room with a teacher ans about ten other students. All males, since the girls got their own classroom. Stiles was glad to notice Coach Finstock got assigned to their classroom. The guy was nuts, for sure, but all in all he was fairly easy going.

Students who had their gym clothes with them, or had an extra pair of gym shorts stashed away in their locker, were allowed to change into those. For those who didn’t have anything on hand, and didn’t want to just sleep in their underwear, some kind of sleeping gowns were provided.

And in this instance Stiles was really, _really_ glad he always kept an extra pair of gym shorts in his locker, because there was no way in hell he’d have worn one of those god-awful gowns if he hadn’t. And although he stood by his choice and wore them with pride, he wasn’t really ready to show off his batman boxer shorts to all of his classmates either.

Scott wasn’t so lucky though and because the weather was getting kinda cold at night, he opted for one of the gowns. And although he wasn’t the only one, Stiles still felt a little sorry for him. The gowns looked awful, to say the least. They were knee high, a kind of pale green and they were open at the back, much like a hospital gown. Scott seemed to share his opinion, if his creased eyebrows and unhappy frown were anything to go by.

Stiles gave his friend a sympathetic pat on the back and shrugged his shoulder, sending his friend an apologetic look. Scott gave him a tentative smile back, before crawling into his assigned bed. And really, if out of all the things that could have happened today, the worst thing that _did_ happen, was Scott wearing one of those hideous gowns, well then they’d gotten lucky hadn’t they?

Stiles smiled back at his friend contently, before crawling into his own bed. After all the stress and tension of the day, Stiles actually found himself rather tired. He exchanged a few more words with Scott and some of the other students, but he soon found himself dozing off. Lulled by Coaches voice telling extravagant tales of his continued survival on the other side of the classroom, he managed to fall asleep fairly quickly.

 

\----------------------------------------------

 

Only to be woken up a few hours later by the sound of loud banging, lights flashing and voices shouting. He groaned, trying to focus his addled brain on the panicked pleas now echoing through the too silent room. It took him a few seconds to recognize the voice, to remember where he was. But before he could make the connection he was rudely awoken by the cold winter air, crashing into his body, enveloping him, when his sleeping bag was ripped away from him.

His eyes flew open and he jerked upright. But before he managed to sit up completely and get a grasp of the situation, hands were touching him, grabbing him. The world spun and swayed and his stomach lurched while the pressure on his arms increased and the volume of the voices around him intensified once more.

He was pulled to his feed by too strong hands and he stumbled when they dragged him forwards. He tried to regain his footing while trying to focus on what was happening. He was being held by two men, clad in black and masks over their faces. Their eyes cold and hard when he looked at them, sending shivers down his spine. ‘What are you doing!?!’ he asked, well more like shouted, at them, looking questioningly, pleadingly between the two of them. Only to be met with an eerie silence, so contradictory to the ever increasing volume of the noises all around him.

Stiles knew he should focus on what was happening around him, find out what was going on in the room, but at that moment all he could focus on was the two men holding him and the hands locked around his arms, holding him in place. He looked back at the larger of the two of them before something on the man’s chest caught his eye.

He looked down and froze. It was like all the air was sucked out of the room, like the world around him came to an abrupt halt before all the pieces finally, _finally_ snapped into place. They were ASF. The men holding him and dragging him to the entrance of the classroom were ASF.

And with that realization the world started spinning again, the room came back into focus and the air crashed into him like a wrecking ball. He gasped and doubled over as much as he could in the too tight grasp of the hands holding him up.

He struggled for breath while a second realization dawned on him, because _Scott_!! His head snapped up and he finally got a glimpse of what was happening in the room around him. Most of the students had woken up now, huddled together and their frightened gazes did nothing to calm Stiles down.

He started struggling, refusing to go any further, needing a minute to process what was happening. But the hands dragged him forward anyway and it was all going too fast. He looked around the room frantically until his eyes finally, _finally_ landed on his friend.

Scott was in the same position as him, two men, one on each side of him, holding him, _dragging_ him. He was already half way out of the door when their gazes locked. And that was the moment that sound finally managed to penetrate his panicked mind. Where there had only been white static noise just a few moments ago, he was now being assaulted by a cacophony of sounds.

Stiles winced, blinked his eyes a few times, trying to focus, trying to filter through all the noise, all the _screaming_.

Students panicking, whimpering. Coach yelling, trying to block their path, only to be harshly shoved aside. Agents barking orders, commanding people to step back, to shut op. The sound of guns cocking threateningly and the angry voices of the agents holding him, shouting at him to _move!_

But in between all those noises, Stiles could only focus on one thing. The panicked pleas of his best friend, crashing into him, whitening out all the other sounds, reducing them to mere static once more.

‘No… no! You can’t do this!’ His friend pleaded, looking frantically back at Stiles. ‘You can’t do this! We did nothing wrong! Where are you taking me? _Why_ are you taking me!?!’, he shouted.

‘What’s going on?? Answer me dammit!’, Scott demanded, while struggling in earnest now, trying to shake off the hands holding him captive. Anger finally winning over the shocked confusion Stiles still found himself in. ‘What are you doing!?!, where are you taking me? Where are you taking _us!_ Stiles, _Stiles!_ ’, Scott screamed, growled. A heavy threatening undertone creeping into his voice that shouldn’t be there.

Stiles looked back up at his friend at that and they locked gazes for only a moment.. Angry brown orbs with little flickers of red were reflected back at him, before his friend was dragged out into the hallway and disappeared out of sight. Leaving a dazed, hushed silence in his wake.

And Stiles still doesn’t remember that night very clearly, all jumbled up in flashes and a haze of panic and confusion. But he does remember that exact moment with terrifying accuracy. It was like he had been walking through molasses up to that point. But the moment he met Scott’s eyes, saw the flicker of red looming behind them and saw his friend disappear into the hallway, the world seemed to snap into focus once more.

And with that a terrifying clarity washed over him, droning out all the sounds, all the noises and all the jumbled thoughts running through his head, leaving only a deadly calm in its wake.

Stiles knew exactly what to do then, what he _needed_ to do. He had never been so sure of anything else in his life, but this he knew. He had to get them out, _had to_. And with that realization he snapped into motion.

He let his whole body go lax, before jumping back up again, throwing his shoulders backwards and catching the agents holding him off guard. Their grip on his arms loosens just a fraction, and Stiles takes advantage of that. He throws his elbows back, punching both men in the gut as hard as he can, before wrenching himself out of their grips. He throws himself forward, stumbling a bit, before finding his equilibrium again and sprinting off after his friend.

He barely makes it three steps before the room explodes into action. ‘Hey stop!’

He darts away from the hands grabbing him, only a few meters between him and the door now. ‘Stiles, _stop_!’, but he doesn’t listen, the words don’t even register when he sprints those last few meters, heart pounding in his chest.

‘Stop, or I will shoot!’, one of the agents shouts. A tall, middle aged man with dark hair and a slight dusting of grey in his neatly trimmed beard. And it’s not the threat, nor the gun aimed at him that makes Stiles hesitate for just a fraction of a second. It’s the hard, cold eyes staring right at him from behind the barrel of the gun. But out of the corner of his eyes, he sees Coach trying to block the guy, and that’s all he needs to take those last few steps out of the door and into the hallway.

But he regrets that decision moments later when he’s barely turned the corner, eyes scanning the hallway frantically in search of his best friend, muscles coiled, ready to sprint off again at a moment’s notice, when a gun goes off…

 

…………………………………………………..

 

Stiles remembers the sound of the gunshot echoing hollowly through the hallways. Remembers the immense _force_ slamming into him, throwing him backwards, wrenching him off his feet. He remembers the sound his head makes when it connects with the lockers behind him with dizzying speed. All right before the pain hits. And after that it’s all a blur.

He tumbles, slides down the lockers onto the floor, trying to breathe through the white hot fire radiating from his upper left arm. He clutches at it, trying desperately to alleviate some of the burning pain coursing through him, taking in heaving, shocked breaths.

He’s only vaguely aware of what’s happening around him, hears Scott shouting his name in desperation, students screaming, panicking, while he dazedly stares at his hand, clutching his left arm, now stained with blood. Little droplets of it dripping own his fingers, falling onto the floor. He picks up snippets of conversation, but can’t really seem to focus on any of them, too busy with suppressing the pain and staving off the fog that’s threatening to take over his mind.

‘….was unnecessary Kate….’, and that sounds like the older, gray haired man again, before another voice, female this time, joins the conversation. He tries to shake the dizziness from his mind.

‘… could be dangerous…’, she says, and he hears footsteps coming closer now. He tries to focus, clearing his vision while skidding backwards.

A woman appears in his field of vision. Tall, like the older guy, with dirty blonde hair and a shotgun slung over her shoulder, lips moving. And Stiles tries to concentrate on what she’s saying, tries to focus on the words, but his thoughts keep slipping away from him. He feels dizzy.

‘… warned him Chis, besides…’. The woman is crouching beside him now, looking at him with a calculating gaze. ‘…..useful, we can rule out werewolf since he appears to not be healing…’. Stiles blinks owlishly up at her, trying to understand the meaning of what she just said.

She smiles down at him menacingly, before her hand shoots out, grabbing his injured arm harshly and igniting the searing fire once more. This time the sound of his own scream, reverberating hauntingly through the empty corridors, is the last thing he hears before the world goes mercifully black.

 

………………………………………………………………..

 

He must have only been out for a few minutes, because the next thing he knows he’s being hauled up onto his feet. A clean white bandage now encircling his left arm and his hands tightly bound behind his back.

They start moving and he stumbles a bit, trying to keep up with the fast pace the agents are setting. He tries to speak, but is halted by the hand on his right arm, squeezing warningly. He looks up at the agent, but there is so much malice and contempt looking back at him, he has to look away again. Stiles shivers. He can practically _feel_ the hatred oozing off the man.

He looks at the other guy and realizes they are the same men that were holding him before. The second one doesn’t look much friendlier and Stiles sights, sags a little in their hold.

He stumbles again, still unsteady on his feet, and they must have taken that as resistance because the next thing he knows he’s doubled over and gasping for air, his ribs _hurt_ from where the guy had punched him, hard. He tries to keep up with them then, not wanting to give them another reason to hurt him.

They turn left, heading for the stairs, and Stiles can see people, teachers and students alike, watching him from behind the classroom windows. A mixture of frightened and angry gazes represented on their faces and Stiles can’t discern if it’s for him or because of him.

And that realization hurts him more than the bullet wound in his arm does. These people have known him all his life. He grew up with most of them for God’s sake. And now they’re looking at him like he’s some kind of animal! And the worst part of it is, that it all must be some kind of misunderstanding. Stiles doesn’t know why they are taking him, why they’ve been so rough with him, but he’s sure there’s been some mistake. Because he’s _human_ and they have no right to take him!

Honestly, Stiles is more worried about Scott then about himself. They thought Melissa succeeded in swapping the blood tests, but something must have gone wrong after all.  He tries to look for his friend, but Scott is nowhere to be seen. Stiles figures they must have gotten a head start when he was unconscious. He tries to speed up a bit, wanting to catch up with him. But he’s getting tired and he feels dizzy and nauseous, and his head is getting more foggy with every step they take. He feels blood dripping along the side of his face, and it’s no wonder, he hit his head pretty hard when he fell. He figures he must have a slight concussion, at the very least.

He must have slowed down a bit too much to their liking, because suddenly there is a harsh tug on his injured arm and Stiles groans in pain, black spots dancing before his eyes. And it only gets worse from there. By the time they reach the stairs, his head is spinning, his breathing is becoming more and more shallow and the pain has intensified tenfold. So much, he can barely focus on anything else. The fast pace and the still too harsh grip on his injured arm not helping at all. Stiles is honestly surprised he managed to keep standing, let alone walking all this time.

By the time they reach the front entrance of the school Stiles is exhausted , clammy and cold all at once. And somewhere in the back of his mind, he understands he must be in shock, but he’s too focused on managing the pain coursing through his body and searching for his best friend, that he isn’t really able to process anything else.

More and more agents have entered the school, swarming all around him, keeping the other students and teachers at bay. But still, even amidst all those people, all those agents, Scott is nowhere to be seen and Stiles’ worry intensifies.

‘Where's Scott’, he croaks out.

‘Shut up and keep walking’, is the curt reply he gets, accompanied by a rough shove in the back. He stumbles again, but manages to maintain his footing this time. He is led out of the school and into the dark parking lot. The cold night air creeping along his back, his thin shirt and lacrosse shorts doing nothing to keep him warm. He shivers and tries to look around, searching for someone, anyone who can help him.

But it’s no use. The parking lot is empty, except for a few dark vans and some agents standing guard alongside them. He is led to the van situated furthers to the right. The back doors are pulled open by the agent standing guard and he is shoved none too gently into the back.

One of the agents gets into the back with him and retrieves a pair of zip ties out of the backpack the agent standing guard handed to him, before making his way over to Stiles. He tries to slide backwards, nearly tumbling back out of the van. But before he is able to proses what’s happening, the other agent is behind him, holding him still.

His legs are bound tightly together. And then the agent in front of him pulls something else out of his backpack. It takes Stiles a few moments to process what it is, but when he does, he starts to struggle again. But Stiles is weak and dizzy from blood loss and the contusion on his head doing nothing to help him keep his mind focused. Besides, he wouldn’t be a match for those guys, not even on his best days.

He hears a tearing sound and shortly after the peace of duct tape it pressed firmly over his mouth. He tries to talk, reason with them, but the only sound that comes out is a muffled murmur. The agent puts the duct tape away and retrieves a third item.

Stiles heaves in an unsteady breath through his nose, trying not to panic. But it’s a wasted effort because as soon as he sees the black hood coming his way, _feels_ it being pulled over his head, taking away his vision and leaving him in a disorientating world of black, he loses it.

He starts screaming through the tape, kicking out with all his might, and tries to make his way over to where he remembers the doors should be.

He actually managed to hit one of them, if the stifled curse and the violent kick to his ribcage shortly after is any indication. But that’s all he manages to do before he’s roughly shoved further into the van and hears the second agent leave the back. The doors close behind him with a harsh thud.

He lays there, breathing harshly for a few minutes, trying to adjust to the dark, before he hears the engine turn on. The first few miles are smooth and Stiles makes his way over to the corner of the van, leaning against the side, while testing the restraints holding his hands together.

Like his feet, his hands are bound with zip ties, pulled too tight. There is no leeway whatsoever, and the sharp edges of the unforgiving plastic are cutting into his wrists. He tries to get the hood off then, but any attempts to do so have no results and only manage to exacerbate his aching head. After a while he gives up on that too.

He sits there for a while. Trying not to think about the pain he’s in, trying not to think about Scott and what’s happening to him. But he’s also trying really hard not to think about his father. Because _God_! how worried he must be when he finds out Stiles was taken! And who’s going to take care of him now??

He tries not to think about all of that, but every time he manages to think about something else, _anything_ else, his thoughts are inevitably brought back again to those harsh questions.

He’s only brought out of his thoughts when he feels the car changing course, driving off the main road and into a backroad. His suspicions are confirmed when the uneven road causes the van to bounce and shake, much to Stiles’ dismay. Every bump, every hole, manages to aggravate his already smarting injuries.

He starts to feel dizzy and light headed again, the longer the path continues. His head aches and his arm hurts like hell. He can actually feel a fresh flow of blood starting to seep through the bandages, trailing down his arm.

They hit a particularly deep pothole and Stiles _screams_ when he’s thrown sideways, the wall of the van connecting with his injured arm. He rolls on his other side and groans, tries to hold on onto consciousness. But his already tentative grasp on consciousness is completely lost when the van veers to the right, slamming Stiles into the side of the van once again.  He lets out a silent scream before the world goes black and he knows no more.


	5. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Im so sorry for the late update! I've been away on vacation for two weeks. And although I thought I would actually have more time to write, it didn't really turn out that way. Besides that, i've been a little bit stuck on this chapter. I know where i want this story to go, but this particular chapter? Not so much. I'm still not quite sure to be honest. The chapter became too large and i desided to split it in two separate chapters. And although i'm kind of satisfied about this part, i haven't figured out what to do with the second part yet. So the next update probably won't be in a week ar so, but might take a bit longer.

Stiles wakes up slowly, groggily. He groans, head lulling to the side. He tries to blink open his eyes, but as soon as he does he’s assaulted by the bright yellow light illuminating the room. He groans and squeezes his eyes shut again. Trying to clear his head, to orientate himself.

He’s lying on something flat and hard. Some sort of table he supposes. A really uncomfortable one at that. Cold too, Stiles thinks when shivers wrack his body. Come to think of it, it’s not just the table that’s cold. There’s a slight breeze in the air. So either someone left a window open or they left the fan on or something. 

He shivers again, but tries to ignore the cold while trying to take stock of his body. They took his shirt from him, probably cut it off. But thankfully they left his lacrosse shorts on. Still, it’s doing nothing to stave off the cold creeping into his body. He tries to lift his hand, tries to push himself off of the table. Only to be halted by the sound of clanging, the feeling of metal pushing into his wrist.

He tries his other arm gingerly, trying not to jolt the shot wound too much, only to feel the same restrictive metal holding that wrist captive too. He opens his eyes again, this time a little more successfully, and looks down at his arms. The bandage on his arm is stained red by now and it still hurts like a bitch, even if he tries to keep it as still as possible, but thankfully the bleeding seems to have stopped, so he probably won’t be dying of blood loss any time soon. Yay for small mercies.

Just like he expected, his hands are both encased by a shiny pair of metal handcuffs. He pulls again, testing their strength, their reign. But there’s not much leeway and they won’t give an inch. His breathing picks up a little and he yanks his right hand again, trying to get it free, while keeping his left arm as still as possible, trying to not aggravate the wound. He stops and goes still when he hears the door open and a women steps in. Stiles squints at her, she looks familiar, but he can’t place her.

It isn’t before she comes to a stop right next to him and drawls his name, when in clicks, it’s the same woman who shot him. He shivers involuntarily and looks up at her. ‘You shot me!’

‘Aw Stiles, don’t be like that, it’s just a flesh wound... Besides, we gave you fair warning didn’t we?’ she looks down at him, a hint of glee in her eyes.

Stiles swallows and looks away, before focusing on her once more. ‘Why am I here? Where’s Scott?’, he tries to keep his voice level, to keep calm, but it’s very hard when she’s staring at him like that, like he’s the most fascinating thing in the world.

‘Don’t worry about your friend now sweetie, you should be more worried about yourself. You lied to us Stiles… and I really don’t like liars’

Her voice sounds vindictive and Stiles strains his neck to keep sight of her when she walks around behind him. ‘What do you mean? I’ve never even met you before!’

‘You know… all supernaturals have to register with the ASF right? But you didn’t…’ She walks back around to the side, trailing a finger down his chest, looking off in the distance. She stops suddenly and looks down at him sharply. ‘Why didn’t you Stiles?, we could have helped you..’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about! I don’t need your help! There must have been some mistake, so why don’t you just let me gnnggg!’ He’s cut off abruptly when Kate grabs his chin harshly.

‘Cut the crap Stiles! We tested your blood three times and every time it came back positive for the SAI-gene, common in almost all supernaturals. So we _know_ you’re one of them. What we want to know is _what_ you are. Since your wound still isn’t healing, we can rule out werewolf, or any werecreature for that matter. We’ve sent your bloodwork off to a specialist, so we’ll find out eventually, but it will all go a lot easier for you if you just tell me. So tell me Stiles, what are you?’ Her voice had picked up gradually, to the point she’s almost screaming in his face. Stiles cringes away and tries to keep his voice level in a vain attempt to keep her calm too.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about! I’m hu-‘

 _Thwack_! His head whips to the side by the force with which she hits him. It’s so unexpected that it doesn’t really register until Kate grabs his chin forcefully again, making him look at her once more.

‘I don’t like liars, Stiles!’, she hisses. ‘Don’t make me repeat myself _again!’_

‘I’m not lying! I don’t know what you’re talking about!’, he says pleadingly. She’s unpredictable, _dangerous,_ and she’s getting on his nerves. ‘I’m not a supernatural! Just talk to my dad, he’ll…’, and that’s as far as he gets before she slaps him again, harder this time. Smacking his head forcefully against the table, aggravating his already aching head. He blinks, trying to force away the nausea and dizziness, while trying to keep track of Kate.

‘So you want to do this the hard way huh? Fine!’ she hisses before stomping out of the room, ‘I’ll let you think about it for a bit’. And with that the door closes behind her.

It’s not long before the door opens again and a man steps in. Clad in black, much like Kate was, and a menacing, gleeful smirk on his face. He walks towards Stiles determinately before fishing a set of keys out of his pocket and unlocking his restraints from the table. Before Stiles can even blink, let alone utter a word, the man has him up and off the table, dragging him to the far end of the room.

‘What are you doing!’ he shrieks, and tries to put up some resistance. But he has to focus too much of his efforts on staying on his own two feet and trying to keep pressure off of his aching arm, to put up much of a fight.

Before he knows it he’s being pressed against the wall and the man has his hands locket together in front of him, before attaching a hook to them and pulling his arms over his head.

Stiles is too shocked to do more than blink at the man standing in front of him, while trying to maintain his balance. His arms were pulled up so high that he is forced to balance on his tiptoes to keep from dangling from his arms completely. And even then, the strain the position puts on his injured arm is _agonizing_ , and Stiles squeezes his eyes shut for a minute, breathing harshly. Black spots dance before his eyes when he opens them again and he has trouble hearing what the man in front of him is saying above the roaring in his ears.

‘.. should have just answered her. But oh well, more fun for me this way!’, he says gleefully before turning around and walking back to a cabinet on the left side of the door. He opens the top drawer and retrieves something that looks suspiciously like a roll of duct tape, before making his way back over again. Stiles had taken an involuntary step back, as much as the restraints allow him, on the sight of it, and is now almost completely pressed against the wall behind him.

He tries to shake his head loose when the man grabs his chin forcefully, much like Kate has – and he must be developing a pretty colorful array of bruises there by now, because _seriously_ , these guys are strong! – and no matter how hard he struggles, he can’t escape the iron grip. ‘No no no… please! You don’t have to do this! I’ll –‘,

To be honest, he doesn’t really know what he was gonna say. But whatever it was, he doesn’t get the chance to say it, because the man had already torn of a peace of tape and pressed it firmly over his mouth, reducing his voice into a mere incoherent mumble.

‘Shhh…. Save that pretty voice of yours for when Kate comes back, and take the time to think _really_ hard about what you want to tell her, okay?’, he says mockingly, while giving him a pet on the cheek. ‘Good boy…. Now let’s begin!’

The hour that follows after that, or at least he thinks it’s about an hour, is kind of a blur if he thinks back to it. He remembers himself stoically grunting from behind the tape when the first punches fell to his midsection, but that soon turned into pleading and begging when they became harsher, more vindictive. He started to lose track of time after the first punch to his head, making black spots dance before his eyes once more and releasing a fresh trickle of blood, dripping down the side of his face. His head lulls and he blinks his eyes heavily, while desperately trying to remain standing on his tiptoes. But all his efforts turn out to be in vain a few moments later, when the guy in front of him punches him in his injured arm _hard_. He screams behind the tape before losing his balance altogether and sagging in the restraints holding him up, putting even more strain on his arm, and pulling him over the edge, back into unconsciousness.

 

\----------------------------------------

 

He is woken up a while later by the clanging of the door. He’s still in the same position, chained to the ceiling. He must have been unconscious for quite some time, cause by now, his hands feel numb. Even the pain in his arm is reduced to a dull throbbing, but that only makes his other injuries stand out more. His head hurts like hell, and he’s pretty sure he’s got one, if not more, broken ribs. But he doesn’t have much time to really think about it because the next moment, Kate is walking back into the room.

‘Aww… that doesn’t look really comfortable, is it?’, she says mockingly while walking directly towards him. ‘Here, let me help you with that..’. She fishes out a key out of her pocket and opens the cuffs holding him up. As soon as they open, his knees buckle and he falls down, sprawls onto the floor into an indignant heap. He groans when pins and needles shoot op from his hands into his arms, awakening them once more. And the pain that comes with that shoots through him like a sharp knife. He stifles a cry and waits a few seconds for the worst pain to pass, before attempting to push himself up off the floor a little, not wanting to be lying face down while she towers over him.

He struggles a bit, trying not to put any pressure on his left arm, while pushing himself up with his right. But in the end he manages to regain a seating position, his back pressed against the wall. When he looks up again, Kate is crouched in front of him. He looks straight at her and tries to remain stoic, even though his split lip and his already slightly swollen right eye probably won’t help much in keeping up the façade.  ‘Where is Scott?’

Kate sights and looks down before giving him an impatient look. ‘Like I said before, you shouldn’t be worried about your friend Stiles, focus on yourself right now. I had hoped these last few hours would have given you a bit of clarity, but maybe I should give you a little while longer. So what do you say Stiles, are you ready to answer my questions, or should we repeat the whole process all over again?’

She looks so sincere, it makes his skin crawl. ‘We have all the time in the world, so really Stiles, it’s up to you. You just have to tell me what you are, and all of this will stop’.

‘I don’t know what you want me to say! I’m human, I’ve _always_ been human! And even if your test was right – which they aren’t – and I wasn’t, I wouldn’t have a clue about what I am!’. He’s almost shouting now,  frustration and impotent anger winning over the pain and residual fear coursing through his body.

‘Oh sweetie…’, she says while trailing a finger down his cheek, wiping away a fleck of blood with her thumb, a mockery of a loving caress. ‘There’s really no need to make this so hard on yourself… look at what you’ve already done to yourself, you’ve reopened your wound. There’s no need to make this any worse than it already is, just tell me what we want to know.’

‘I can’t tell you what I don’t know!’, he grounds out and he feels the beginning of frustrated tears well up in his eyes, but he’ll be damned to let them fall, to show her even that little bit of emotion.

‘Well… we’ll just have to find out if that’s true then don’t we? But remember Stiles, it’s all up to you…’. And with that she signals to one of the henchman who had followed her into the room, before turning around and walking away.

The beating that follows is even worse than the first one, although this time he manages to stay conscious till the end of it, if only barely. He sags in his restraints as soon as the two men – because one man apparently wasn’t enough to do the job properly this time – have walked out of the room and closed the door behind them. He heaves in a shuddering breath and finally lets all the emotions he’s kept locked in tight for the last couple of hours – or days even, who knows? – run free. A single tear falls tentatively down his cheek before Stiles can’t hold them in any longer and lets out a silent sob.

After that the dam just breaks and the tears start flowing freely down his cheeks, clouding his vision, while he heaves in one painful sob after the other. All the near paralyzing fear and pain and all the pent up anger and frustration making themselves known. And he can feel small cracks starting to form in his meticulously constructed armor. The walls he started building around himself the day his mom got sick and the mask he’s worn to all but his dad, Scott and Melissa since the day she died, they are slowly starting to crack under the pressure Kate puts on it.

The pain he felt after his mom died was so strong, it was like nothing he’s ever felt before. It was like a physical ache that only seemed to grow stronger over time. Coursing through him and growing in intensity until it was nearly overwhelming and all consuming. Like a little whirl of air, going round and round in circles, faster and faster, growing stronger by the second until it crashed over him like a hurricane, eliciting a full blown panic attack and leaving only utter destruction and desolation in its wake. The first time that happened it felt like he was literally dying, the pain so _real_ and all-consuming he’d honestly thought he wouldn’t survive it. But he had and over time he had meticulously and carefully constructed these walls around him until they were strong enough to

withstand even the strongest storms, keeping it at bay. But now, on the onslaught of such force, he felt his walls slowly cracking. He wasn’t meant to withstand this kind of brutality and it _hurts_ to the point he can barely breathe.

It’s also harder and harder to keep up the mask he’s worn so steadfastly for the last couple of years. Specifically designed to keep his own worries, his own thoughts at bay, hidden from the people around him, trying to be the strong person they all so desperately needed. But now in the solitude of this dark cold cell, caving under the array of emotions pressing down on him, the worry he felt, not only for himself but also for his dad, for Melissa and above all for Scott, and with no one to witness his slow demise, that mask finally started to crack.

And just for a moment, just for one blissful moment, he lets it, relinquishing all control and sinking into his own despair. And it feels so freeing, like you’ve been holding your breath for way too long till the point your head starts throbbing, you’re getting dizzy and black spots are starting to creep into your field of vision, your lungs feel like bursting and it just _hurts_! Until you let go, breathe in again and all that falls away, swallowed up by a blissful, exhilarating peace

Until the moment you remember the reason you weren’t breathing in the first place, but by then it’s too late. That’s how Stiles feels now. Even though letting go for just one second felt like the weight of the world was lifted off his shoulders, that relieve quickly washed away in a storm of utter disappointment and desolation. It felt too much like giving in, _giving up_ , and he just couldn’t do that. But even so, even though he managed to pull himself together again, to don his armor once more, it feels like, in those mere seconds, he’s already lost a little piece of himself and it leaves him feeling hollow, _raw_ , and so, so afraid. Scared of what will be left of him afthr all of this is said and done.

He shut his eyes and tilted his head back, heaving in one last shuddering breath, before pulling himself together once more. And just in time, because a few moments later the door opened again and Kate wanders back in.

‘I hope you had enough time to think about your answer Stiles’, she says while hopping up on the metal table off to his right, looking at him inquisitively. ‘So tell me, what are you?’

‘I-‘, he coughs, clearing his throat, ‘I told you, I don’t know what you’re talking about!’’ he says while spitting out a glob of blood, watching it splatter onto the floor in front of him before looking back up at Kate again. He takes in a steadying breath and steels himself before answering. ‘I’m human’.

Kate sights and jumps off the table. ‘No you’re not. You know it, I know it, we both know it. I bet even your friend Scott knows it’. Stiles’ head snaps up at the mention of his friends name, clinging desperately to this little piece of information, the first thing he’s heard about his friend since he got here.

‘He’s been asking about you, you know’, she walks closer, smiling triumphantly at him. ‘He saw you get shot you know and he’s been asking about you nonstop, ever since he got here.’ She comes to a halt, leaning against the adjacent wall to his left, arms folded over her chest nonchalantly, watching him for any sign of reaction.

‘Oh… so he’s alive then?’ Stiles asks, trying to keep the emotion out of his voice, not wanting to give anything away. He sniffs and clears his throat again. ‘Please, just call my dad’. He looks down and clears his throat once more, shuffling on the balls of his feet a little, trying to get a little bit more comfortable. ‘This really is just a big mistake. Like I said, I’m human, and as far as I know Scott’s too. I’ve known him all my life, he’s like a brother to me, and believe me, if anyone is human, it’s Scotty. He’s one of the most humanly humans I’ve ever met, wouldn’t hurt a fly, even if it killed him.’

‘See Stiles…’, she says while pushing herself off of the wall and walking slowly towards him. ‘Now I _know_ you’re lying’. She’s right in front of him now, voice turned hard, placing one hand on either side of his face. ‘Because we knew what Scott was from the moment he left the school two days ago’. She’s leaning impossibly closer now, her nose almost touching his, her overly sweet perfume invading his nostrils, making his eyes water. ‘Do you know how we know?’. She laughs then, hollowly, vindictively, before petting him on the cheek and shaking her head. ‘All we had to do for Scott to reveal his true nature… was shoot you…

Her eyes have long gone cold, staring hard into his, and her voice is dripping with malice. ‘I only had to shoot _you_ … and he went literally _berserk!_ It took four guys to drag him away initially and about half a dozen bullets to finally take him down. And all he could do was scream your name, eyes glowing and claws slashing.’ She takes a step back, cocks her head, ‘so do you know what that means Stiles?’

Stiles shakes his head numbly, his thoughts had stopped working along the lines of Scott apparently _wolfing out_ in the middle of a public high school, right in front of the frigging ASF, to get to him.

‘it means…..’, and she’s stepping forward again, a dangerous air around her. ‘It means… That you’ve… Been lying…. To me…. _Again!_ ’ Every word is spoken harder and harder, little fleckless of spittle flying into his face while every word is punctuated by a hard blow to his midsection. By the end of it he’s left reeling, doubled over as much as he can in the shackles, and gasping for air.

Kate crouches in front of him, looking him straight in the eye. ‘Well… it doesn’t matter now. Scott is a lot more cooperative than you, and good behavior should be rewarded. And since he only asked for two little things, easily granted, I’m gonna do just that.’

‘First thing he asked for was seeing you….’ She smiles sweetly when she sees the spark of guarded interest in his eyes and pats his cheek. ’BUT… you’ll just have to wait a little longer. Because the second thing he asked for in exchange for some willingly given answers was that we provided you with adequate medical attention. He may have been under the impression that you were nearly dying of blood loss, but still, we wouldn’t want to disappoint him now… would we?’

She stands back up and walks over to the metal table before signaling the two guards at the door to come forward. ‘Get him on the table’. She walks over to the cabinet where she’d retrieved the duct tape earlier and rummages some in one of the drawers. Stiles can’t really see what she’s doing, because he’s too busy trying to keep his feet under him when they release him from his binds and drag him over to the table none too gently. Before he knows it his feet are swept out from underneath of him and he is being lifted up and deposited roughly onto the table. One of the goons fastens his legs down to the table with some kind of leather straps he pulls out from underneath the table top, while the other holds him pressed securely against the cold metal surface. When the guy is done with his legs he moves up to his chest before pulling up another set of straps, this time pulling them over his upper chest and securing them together before moving back down to his wrists and securing them in a similar matter as his ankles. Only when he’s so tightly secured to the table he can barely wiggle his toes, does the second guy ease up on the pressure on his chest before letting go of him all together.

By the time he’s calmed down enough to focus on his surroundings again, one of the goons took over Kate’s position by the cabinet, and Kate is now walking back towards him, scissor in hand. She moves over to his left side and peels the edge of the bandage on his arm a bit up, sliding the tip of the scissor underneath, before cutting the bandage off roughly. The blood that had soaked through is dries by now and parts of the bandage are sticking to the wound. Stiles is barely able to stifle a scream when she grabs the edge of the remaining bandage tightly and rips it away. The force with which she does it is enough to reopen the wound and Stiles watches dazedly when a trickle of blood starts slowly descending down his arm, dripping on the clean metal surface beneath him.

‘Well, we can’t have you actually bleeding out on us can we?’ Kate says sarcastically, before handing over the bandage to the second goon. ‘Shawn, be so kind to throw this away will you? And then you can take over from Johnson’. She nods at the other guy, ‘Johnson, you can go, you know what to do’.

Stiles watches as the first goon, Shawn apparently, walks over to the cabinet, throws the bandage away and then takes something Johnson hands to him. He can’t see what it is, his view blocked by the angle of their bodies. It’s only when Shawn turns back around that Stiles finally gets a glimpse of what he’s holding. And the moment he does his whole body goes rigid. He hears Kate chuckling beside him, knows she’s talking to him, but all he can focus on is the sharp dagger in the man’s hand. And it’s not the sight of the dagger itself that scares him, no it’s the white hot tip on the end of it – an  orange glow around it, sizzling in the cool air, whispering promises of unimaginable pain – that manages to elicit a whimper out of him.

‘No no no… what are you doing? Kate? _Kate!_ What are you going to do with that?!?’. Stiles looks back and forth between Shawn and Kate, struggling in his bonds, trying to find a way to get free, to get away from them. He looks at them with a silent plea in his gaze, begging for them to just _stop_ , to tell him this was all some kind of sick joke and he can just go home now. Even though he can tell by the way Kate is looking at him and the minute spark of anticipation, excitement, in Shawn’s eyes that it’s not.

This is happening and there’s nothing he can do to stop it. But that doesn’t stop him from struggling even harder when Shawn hands the dagger to Kate. He isn’t dumb, he can put two and two together and he _knows_ what she’s going to do with it. And it’s like that knowledge has sucked the air right out of him. He’s struggling for breath, gasping in air while little beats of sweat start to form on his forehead.

‘Do you know that fire is a very effective way for cauterizing a wound?’, she asks while looking transfixed at the burning dagger she’s holding between them. ‘Of course you know, you’re the smart one aren’t you?’ she says casually while gripping his injured arm harshly, sharp fingernails digging into his arm right beneath the bullet wound. The harsh pressure shooting little jolts of pain up his arm, sending little trickles of blood down his arm.

‘You know, this would all have been unnecessary if you’d just talked to me. So honestly, this is your own doing. I’m actually doing you a kindness, helping you out and all, making sure you don’t bleed to death. You should be thanking me. You should be thanking _Scott_ , it was his request after all. Remember that’. And that’s the last thing he hears before she brings the white hot point of the dagger down on his arm, searing the wound shut, making his world explode in a whirlpool of bright red fire and burning _agony_.

He can do nothing but lie there, muscles taut, straining in their bonds, back arched while he rides out wave after wave of paralyzing pain racking through his body. His mouth open in a silent scream, the pain so all-consuming that no sound comes out.

When he finally feels like he can breathe again he is _wrecked_ , drenched in sweat, tiny tremors coursing through his body while he tries to steady his breathing. He tries to blink away the moisture in his eyes and somewhere in the back of his mind he realizes he must have been crying. But it doesn’t matter because all he can focus on his the sharp throbbing in his arm and the dagger Kate is still holding in her hand threateningly.

He must have spaced out a bit, staring at it, because next thing he knows he’s jerking violently by the fingers snapping right in front of his face. ‘STILES! Are you listening? ‘, she’s leaning over him now, peering down at him. ‘This one was a freebie, you can thank Scott for that one. But the next one is up to you’.

His breathing picks up at that, and he has to clamp down hard on the little bit of control he still has to not start crying again at the mention of a next time. He can’t go through that again, he _can’t!_

‘Please! Kate, _please!’_ he looks at her through tear stained eyes. ‘Don’t! … Don’t, not again please! I don’t- I don’t know what you want me to say but please, _please!’_

‘Come on Stiles, you know what I want to hear! It’s very simple really, just tell me what you are, and the pain will stop…’ she looks down at him expectantly, swiping away a stray tear with her thump when it rolls down his cheek.

‘I don’t know what I am!! I’m human, and if not, I don’t know!’ his heart throbs from a mixture of adrenaline, pain and helpless anger. ‘Kate please! _I. Don’t. Know_!’

‘Wrong answer’. And with that the hot metal comes down on his arm again. Stiles can’t manage to hold in a scream this time and it bounces of the wall hauntingly. He’s full on sobbing by the time she pulls the dagger away again, taking little pieces of his skin with it. Or, at least, that’s what it feels like and he nearly blacks out from the sensation of it.

He’s begging openly now, pleading for Kate to just stop – screw being all manly and stoic when all it brings him is more pain. He just wants the pain to stop, just for a moment, so he can think, _breathe_ – but she doesn’t. it doesn’t matter what he says, she won’t believe him. She keeps asking him the same question over and over again, pressing the dagger down onto his arm every time she doesn’t get the answer she wants. Until it feels like his whole upper left arm is one giant burn, not a single area of it unmarked, and it _hurts!_

Stiles has long since stopped answering to her questions, resigned in the fact that it doesn’t matter anyway. Besides, he needs every bit of energy he still has left to just keep breathing through the pain, through the white hot fire that races through his body every time she presses the dagger into his arm. He’s barely conscious by the time she stops pressing the dagger down and starts scraping off little pieces of burnt, sizzling flesh with the tip of it. And that’s the moment that he finally, mercifully loses consciousness altogether, drifting away into the black abyss, feeling no more.

 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Stiles is woken up again by the sound of voices calling his name, and he groans silently. He doesn’t know how much longer he can take this, but he has no choice here does he? Even if he wanted to answer her questions, wanted to shout it at her from the top of his lungs, he doesn’t _know_. He doesn’t know what she wants from him, what she wants to hear. He tried to tell her that, reason with her. But nothing he says makes any difference, she doesn’t believe him. And Stiles is beginning to figure out that she never will. 

'Wakey wakey!', she taunts him, before he feels harsh fingertips trail down his chest. He keeps his eyes firmly shut, tries to keep his breath low and steady. 

'I know you’re awake Stiles.... open those pretty brown eyes for me baby' her voice whispered in his ears sickly sweet, sending an involuntary shiver down Stiles' spine. 

Long spidery fingers caress his cheek, while the other strokes lazily through his hair. 'Open those big browns bambi, don’t be rude', she almost singsongs. 'You've got a visitor...' She’s so close now, he could feel the hot, moist puff of breath against his ear, followed by the wet, burning slide of a tongue up his neck and behind his ear, accompanied by a light breezy chuckle. 

And Stiles can’t help it then, he lets out a full on body shiver and turns his head away from her as much as he can. 'Don't- don't touch me...', he rasps out weakly. Kate really laughs then. A cold hollow sound that reverberates across the room. Where her grip on his chin had been gentle, flirtatious even, only moments ago, it quickly turns hard and bruising and Stiles tries to squirm away from it, a low whine caught in his throat.

'Well, that’s not really nice now is it?', she questioned, voice turning icy, grip tightening even more. 'Didn't your daddy teach you any manners', she taunts. 'Say hello to your visitor Stiles...'. 

When he still doesn’t respond she hisses in frustration, before she withdraws her hand quickly and slaps him hard in the face. 'Now open your damn eyes or your friend will get hurt...'.

There was a note of steel in her voice that sent shivers up his spine and he tries to squeeze his eyes shut even more tightly, tries to block her out. Until the words register that is and he snaps his eyes open quickly, searching for this so called friend. He looks around the room frantically and it doesn’t take long before his eyes land on Scott. And the moment he does he freezes, staring feverishly at his friend, too shocked to say anything.

He hasn’t seen his friend since they were taken from the school two nights ago and he’s been sick with worry about him. He drinks in the sight of his best friend greedily, desperately. Looking for any sign of hurt. And even though he knows that any injuries Scott sustained would have healed by now, he still breathes out a sigh of relieve when he doesn’t find any. 

But from the looks of it, the same couldn't be said about his own state. Scott’s outright growling now, breathing heavily through the gag in his mouth and straining against the men holding him. His eyes are transfixed on Stiles' own, desperate, pleading and angry all at once. Stiles doesn’t know how he looks to his friend, but if he looks as bad as he’s feeling, well then it’s no wonder Scott looked so angry, so  _terrified_.  

He wants to answer the plea in his friends eyes, tell him he’s okay, or at least that he will be. But he’s halted almost immediately when Kate fastens a gag around his head, cutting him off abruptly. He looks piercingly at his best friend, willing him to understand that he was  _okay,_ that he’d get through this, no matter what _._ It seemed like Scott had understood his message because he nods slightly, a little bit of the tension draining out of him. 

They take Scott over to the wall on the left side of him, only a few meters between them. They release his handcuffs and chain his hands to the two hooks protruding from the brick wall. Much like the way he’d been chained up what was probably only a few hours ago, but it feels like ages have passed since then.

They’re both in the same position now. Chained up, gagged and shirtless. In any other circumstances Stiles would definitely have made a lewd comment about that. But even if he could speak, he wouldn't say a thing about it now. Cause even if he had the energy for it, this wasn’t funny at all.

Kate walks over to were Scott stands then and walks her fingers playfully down his chest. 'Now Scotty, we had a deal remember.... i take you to your little friend.... you give me answers, it's as easy as that'. 

She looks at Scott intently. 'You understand?...' , she repeats. Scott nods once, short and hesitantly, and something uneasy starts to stir in Stiles' belly. 'Good boy...', she says mockingly while patting him on the cheek. 'Now, let’s talk...'. She reaches up with both hands and takes the gag out of his mouth. 

As soon as she does, Scott focusses his attention back on Stiles and tries to talk. 'Stiles! Are you o-....'

'No!' Kate yells at him angrily, voice booming around the small room, before gripping his chin  _hard_ , angling his face back so he is looking only at her. She breathes in a steadying breath before the anger seems to drain out of her and she regains her calm facade once more. 'We talked about this..', she says disapprovingly before releasing her tight grip. She walks over to Johnson, who was one of the men who had brought Scott in, and he hands her something. Stiles can't see what it is, but Scotts reaction is immediate. 

'No! Wait!.... WAIT!', he yells pleadingly, desperately, while his eyes flicker from Kate to Stiles and back to her. Stiles shifts uneasily and watches both of them intently, feels the tension thickening in the air. 'No.... we talked about this...but you didn't listen', Kate says so, so calmly it sends shivers down Stiles' spine. 

She starts walking over back to Stiles, not haltered by Scotts increasingly desperate pleas in the slightest. 'Please,  _please_ Kate! I'm --, I'm sorry! I won't talk to him again, I promise!'. She's reached Stiles by now and walks around the table, so she's facing both him and Scott. 'Not good enough', she says matter of factly before Stiles finally,  _finally,_ sees what she's been holding when she trails the black device down his chest tauntingly. He breathes in sharply while looking at her in trepidation.

She trails the taser back up his chest again until it's firmly pressed against the underside of his chin, pushing his head up even more, forcing him to look at her. 'So we'll just have to show you what will happen when you break the rules Scott, when you won't  _listen'._ She looks at Stiles intently now, before smiling at him vindictively. 'Too bad your little friend has to suffer for it...' 


	6. Chapter Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so, so sorry for the late update! Life got in the way and i had a bit of writers block with this chapter. But I'll try to update more regularly from now on!

Stiles doesn’t know when he stopped screaming, but when he does, the silence that remains is deafening.

He can hear his own stilted, heaving breaths. He hears Scott’s quiet sobs, Kate’s stilettos clicking on the floor when she walks back over to Scott again. They’ve been at this for a while now and Stiles can’t remember how many times Kate put the Taser on him.

Honestly, he doesn’t really remember what exactly happened after the first few hits, only remembers bits and pieces, flashes really. He remembers the first shock Kate gave him with the Taser as clear as day. Remembers the electricity rushing through his body, burning its way through him, all consuming and alighting every nerve ending in his body.

 _Agony_ , from the moment the tips of the Taser touch his skin, burning little holes in his body, till the moment Kate finally, _finally,_ pulls it away again. And when it’s gone he’s left panting for air, just long enough to catch his breath, before the next hit comes in and the cycle starts all over again.

The first one had only been a warning, and Stiles had naively thought that’d be the end of it. Scott had already been answering all of Kate’s questions, that’s the whole reason they’re here, so why would he stop now?

And at the beginning Scott tried, he really did. He told Kate how he got bitten, how he managed to stay hidden for so long and how they faked the blood tests. But with that Scott had told her all there was to tell. He’d given her everything he knew. But when Kate started asking questions about who bit Scott, who else might have been bitten and what Stiles was, all that answered her back was a stilted, guilty silence

And here they are now… Scott has nothing left to give, and Stiles is the one paying the price for it. Every time Scott fails to answer, Kate takes it out on him. And every time she finds a more sensitive spot on his body or ups the voltage a little, until it becomes nearly unbearable.

But he doesn’t blame his friend. He knows Scott would give anything to trade places with him, and even if he did, Stiles wouldn’t have known the answers either. So he bears it as best as he can, not for himself but mostly for Scott. He can’t help the screams that escape him every time Kate presses the trigger. Can’t help his quiet sobs and the tears streaming unwittingly down his cheeks. But he’d be damned if he gives her more than that. So he bites his lips bloody in a valiant effort not to start begging, pleading for her to stop. Because he won’t give her the satisfaction and he _won’t_ put that on Scotts conscience.

He bears it when she pushes the Taser in the soft flesh of his belly, leaving him straining in his bonds and gasping for air. He bears it when she pushes the Taser in the already scorched flesh of his left arm, combining fire with fire, leaving him shivering with cold while beats of sweat slowly drench his body. He bears it when Kate taunts him, when Scott screams his name over and over again, looking at him with desperate, haunted eyes, begging for his forgiveness, making him swallow his pleas and strengthen his resolve. And he bears it when Kate brings the Taser down one last time, a little bit too close to his family jewels for comfort, leaving him convulsing on the table, mouth open, stuck in a silent scream while his eyes roll back in his head.

He bears it, till the voices fade, till the pain is only a distant echo and he knows no more.

\----------------------------------------------------

When he comes to its quiet. Not the good kind of quiet, but an eerie kind of quiet, filled with an electric kind of tension, foreboding. An oppressive quiet that’s making it hard to breathe and leaves him shivering, a near silent groan escaping past his chapped lips. 

'... iles, Stiles!'. It takes him a while to focus past the fog in his brain, to decipher the words Scott's saying to him.

'Stiles! Come on man, wake up! _Wake up!'_   He groans again, trying to shut the voice out. He doesn't want to wake up, doesn't want to feel, because he _hurts_! He's still twitching from the aftershocks of the electricity, his head hurts like hell, and not to mention his left arm, which still feels like it’s on fire.

He honestly doesn’t know what was worse, the burning, searing pain emanating from that one focal point when Kate pressed the hot blade to his arm, the heat and pain licking up his body in waves, all consuming and leaving nothing but ashes, before slowly ebbing away once more. Or the electricity, crashing through him like a small tornado, deadly in its core and destroying everything along the way, there one minute and gone the next, leaving only destruction and desolation in its wake.

He can still feel the echo of both coursing through his body. He can feel the damage they did in the dull burn emanating from his upper left arm, in the too tight pull of his skin and in the little shocks still coursing through his body, leaving him feeling jittery and queasy.

And besides that he still feels the dull ache of the multitude of bruises and lacerations and what is probably at least one broken rib. He feels the dull throbbing in his head and the sharp pains in his stomach, reminding him that he hasn’t had anything to eat and drink in the last couple of days.

So really, who can blame him  if he clamps on to the last remnants of unconsciousness a little bit too tightly, trying desperately to keep the reality out just a few minutes longer.   


Scott apparently, if the increasing desperation and frustration in his voice is any indication. Stiles groans again. He doesn’t want to wake up yet, wants to stay in this blissfully ignorant state of limbo where he doesn’t have to feel, doesn’t have to think.

But even though he doesn’t want to, he can’t leave Scott. Not when is friend sounds so desperate, so guilty. So he musters up all the courage he has and blinks open his eyes, immediately scanning the room for any sign of Kate or her goons, breathing out a sight of relieve when there is no-one there but Scott and him. 

'Scott...', he croaks out but the words get stuck in his too dry mouth, coming out as an incomprehensible groan. He focuses on his friend and tries again, 'Scotty..', and he wants to say more, but it’s apparently more difficult than he thought to form comprehensible sentences.

'Stiles! Oh thank God! Are you okay?? Stiles? Stiles!'

Stiles blinks at him slowly. He knows he's not responding like he should be. He wants to respond, but he's just so _so_ tired all of a sudden. The pain has faded to a dull throbbing and his vision is getting cloudy. A part of him wants so desperately to let go, to rest for a little while longer, but the other part is screaming at him to stay awake, to not leave Scott alone in this. And he tries, _god_ he tries. But in the end it doesn't matter. The dark tendrils of unconsciousness are too strong, pulling him under inch by inch, until Scotts voice is a mere murmur, slowly fading away until he knows no more. 

\-------------------------------------

The next time he wakes up it’s to hands grabbing him, chains unlocking and the sound of metal scraping on the floor.

Stiles blinks blearily while trying to clear his head and regain control of his limbs, even just a little bit, to try and get away from the rough hands pulling him off the table, dragging him backwards across the cold, concrete floor.

The scraping sound has stopped now, replaced by the sound of running water.  Stiles tries to look behind him, to see what’s going on, but the guards holding him are blocking his line of sight. The sound grows stronger the further they pull him backwards and Stiles feels an uneasy feeling start up in his gut.

That feeling is only solidified more when he looks back up to his friend. Scott is still chained op, but he is straining in his bonds, trying to move forward, nearly pulling his arms out of their sockets it looks like. He has duct tape covering his mouth now, probably courtesy of Kate, who’s standing next to him, whispering silently into his ear. His eyes are round as saucers  and he looks at Stiles with a desperate, near frantic gleam in his eyes, trying to yell something at him from behind the tape.

But the message goes unheard and his friends desperate face is the last thing Stiles sees before his world tilts again and icy fire consumes him.

He flails, trying desperately to get back out of the tub, out of the freezing water. But his mind is still reeling from the shock of it, and he can barely let out a muffled scream before the hands push him down into the water. Can barely suck in a lungful of air before the freezing water engulfs him.

He’s trashing and screaming from behind the gag still in his mouth. And he knows he should stop, preserve his energy, preserve the precious little bit of air he’s got left. But no matter how hard he tries, he can’t. The panic clawing at his mind and the need to just _breathe_ , is too strong.

When the water invades his nose, flowing down his nostrils and trailing an icy path down his throat, he trashes even harder. It’s suffocating him from the inside out, driving icy spikes through his lungs, constricting them and sending shockwaves of paralyzing pain through his whole body. Stiles feels himself convulsing, muscles taut, lungs burning, screaming for oxygen, and it _hurtshurtshurts!_

He doesn’t know when the feeling stops. Barely feels it when hands pull him out of the tub. Barely notices when the gag is finally taken out of his mouth. All he knows is that when they do, he can finally breathe again. He holds himself up off the floor on shaking arms while he coughs up the water still in his lungs, while simultaneously trying to get as much air into them as he can.

He feels himself shaking, shivering in the cold air while he reals in another lungful of air. He’s dizzy and nauseous, flinching away from the hands when they try to grab him again. Nearly shouts when he leans away a little bit too far, making his shoulder collide with the cold metal of the tub. Starts hyperventilating when the action causes some of the water to spill over the edge of the tub, splashing down his naked back.

Someone’s talking again, but the voices are muffled, sounding like they come from somewhere far away. His limbs feel heavy and all he can focus on is the fact that he _still can’t breathe!_

He heaves in one unsteady breath after the other, trying to push the panic down. And he actually manages to succeed a little before the hands grab him again, dragging him back to the tub, sending his mind back down into a tailspin of _nonononono!_

He didn’t even notice he was screaming until he’s back in the tub again and the water makes its way quickly into his open mouth. Strangely enough the shock of the cold water and the feeling of the liquid slowly making its way down his throat, manages to pull him out of his panic attack and gives him a sense of perfect clarity. This time he doesn’t struggle against the hands holding him down, keeps as still as possible while trying to hold his breath, waiting for them to pull him back up, lets his mind drift until they do.

He’s much calmer when they pull him up this time, heaving in a shuddering breath while wiping away at the excess water on his face. He looks back up at his friend, who’s still got duct tape covering his mouth and tears in his eyes, looking back at him with such helplessness that it nearly takes his breath away.

And Stiles understands then. It’s not about answers anymore, maybe it never was. Kate’s already got the answers she wanted. It’s a damn power play, and that’s all there is to it. That knowledge, the understanding that they are mere pawns in Kate’s cruel game,  nothing more, nothing less, breaks something inside. Chips away at him, breaks down his armor a little bit more and leaves him feeling hollow and empty.

But it simultaneously manages to strengthen his resolve. Because if that’s all they are, insignificant playthings in her sick little game, only there for her amusement, then he won’t play along. He won’t give her the satisfaction and he won’t let Scott suffer for it.

So the next time the hands grab him, pushing him under once again, he clamps his mouth shut, doesn’t utter a single sound. Sure, he trashes when the hands hold him down too long, claws and scratches at the arms denying him oxygen, grabs desperately at the edges of the tub when he can’t hold on any longer, gasps for air when they finally pull him out again, shaking and shivering. But he doesn’t utter a sound.

Instead, he tries to distract himself, letting his mind drift away. He thinks of his mom,  working in the garden, barefoot and wearing a yellow sunflower dress, little sunburnt freckles crinkling when she smiles back at him. He thinks of his dad, sneaking a bag of curly fries into the station, smiling triumphantly when he thinks his son hadn’t noticed.  Scott smiling so damn gratefully back at him after his father had shown up at the house and Stiles had slammed the door in his face. Mellissa, when she had hugged him on the anniversary of his mother’s dead and told him she wasn’t going anywhere.

He thinks of them when they push him down a fourth, a fifth time. Thinks of them when the burning in his lungs becomes too much, when the pressure in his head keeps building till the point of agony. Clamps to the remnants of these images when the hands hold him down a little bit too long, when he starts to feel numb, and the edges around his vision start to become fussy. He holds on till the memories fade and the world blacks out once more.

\--------------------------------------------

When he comes to next, its fast and quick and he’s awake in an instant. For a second he’s afraid that Kate’s still there, hears her voice whisper in his ears, feels phantom hands pushing him down again. But when he blinks open his eyes and looks around, the door is closed and it’s only him and Scott now.

He’s still lying on the cold, concrete floor, and he shivers unintentionally at the sensation of it. He pushes himself up of the floor a little, looking back over at his friend.  He blinks again while slowly processing the new scene in front of him. Scott’s not hanging from the sealing anymore. His arms are still shackled, but they must have loosened the chains. He's sitting down on the floor now, hands in his lap an leaning against the wall. 

His eyes are closed, but his chest moves in a steady rhythm. He must be sleeping then. And that makes Stiles hesitate for a moment. He doesn't want to wake his friend, not when it looks like he's finally got a few moments of peace. But then again, what if this is the last chance they get to speak to one another? What if the next time Kate comes in, she'll drag him away again? 

He can't take that risk, and he knows Scott wouldn't want him to. So he clears his throat and calls to his friend. 

'Scott...', but it comes out croaky, the sound barely above a whisper. Stiles swallows again, his throat feeling raw and sore when he does so. 'Hey, Scotty.. wake up!' 

But his voice just isn't strong enough and his words fall on deaf ears. He pulls in a deep breath and contemplates his options. He could try yelling for his friend again, but Scott seems fast asleep and it’d be a waste of energy. He could also try to make his way to the door, but the chances of him making it are slim, not with the state he’s in, not without help. It took a lot of energy just to lift himself off the floor a little, let alone crawl all the way to the door.

But maybe he’d be able to make it to Scott. He’s only a few meters away from him and he owes it to the both of them to at least try. So he musters up all the energy he has left, and pushes himself up a little more, crawling forward inch by inch. His hands are shaking and he can feel little beats of sweat dripping down his face while a dizzying feeling of vertigo washes over him. He feels nausea creeping up again and he squeezes his eyes shut, regulating his breathing in a vain attempt to suppress the feeling. He is so focused on that, that he doesn’t even hear Scott calling him.

Scott must have woken up at some point and he’s been calling his name for a while now, by the sounds of it. He tries to blink his vision back into focus. ‘Scott… ‘s ..kay’, he slurs a little, trying to appease his friend. ‘..’s okay’, he murmurs, mostly to himself. ‘I’m coming..’

He knows Scott is talking to him, still calling his name to get his attention. But Stiles ignores it, focusing all his energy in getting one hand in front of the other, closing the distance between them.  It takes what feels like ages before he manages to reach his friend, before he feels Scott’s hands pull him forward.

His arms give out then and he sags against his friend, breathing out a sigh of relieve. He clamps his one good hand around Scotts left arm and just lays there for a minute, just breathes.

He feels his friend returning the death grip Stiles had on him, all the while murmuring silent reassurances. Feels the little huffs of breath in his hair with every word he says. But Stiles hears nothing of it. His ears are ringing and he’s dizzy. All he can do now is just lay against Scott and focus on the familiar and steady heartbeat underneath the palm of his hand.

He hadn’t expected to ever see his friend alive again, let alone be able to touch him, speak to him. And to actually _feel_ that Scott’s okay, that he’s alive, is such a relieve that Stiles can do nothing more than just lay there and hold his friend tightly.

 

They’ve been laying there for what feels like ages before Stiles starts to stir again. Scott had long since stopped talking, but perks up when he feels Stiles moving around again.

‘Stiles, you okay man? You still with me?’ he asks concerned while looking down at his friend.

Stiles tries to lever himself up into a sitting position and after some careful maneuvering as not to jolts his injured arm too much, he manages to get himself seated besides Scott against the wall. He breathes in deeply before looking sideways at his friend. ‘Yeah I’m….’ he starts, but changes his mind quickly, knowing Scott will see through his bravado in mere seconds. ‘Actually no, I’m not fine. I’m okay though, all things considering. You?’.

Scott looks doubtfully back at him, but after a few tense seconds he nods his head in acceptance nonetheless. ‘Good. I’m okay too. All things considering’.

‘Good’, Stiles answers, leaning back against his friend, until his head is rested against Scotts shoulder. They’re quiet for a minute before Stiles dares to ask the question that’s been on his mind for a while now.

‘Hey Scotty… how come you can’t break out of these chains?’, he asks questioningly while shaking their joint hands for emphasis, the chain of the shackles clinging against the concrete floor.

Scott looks down at him sadly, hesitating before answering. ‘I’m not sure….. I think it’s the mountain ash. They’ve got all cells lined with some form of mountain ash, and I think that’s what’s suppressing my powers. I can’t reach them, can’t even flash my eyes. Can’t pull your pain’, he says sorrowfully.

‘..’S okay’, Stiles says while squeezing Scott’s hand again, ‘s not too bad.’

Scott looks at him with a pained expression, opening his mouth to say something, but thinking better of it. He stops for a second, hesitantly, before continuing with a question of his own. ‘Do you think my mom is okay? Your dad?’

‘Yeah…. Yeah I’m sure they’re fine. Knowing your mom and my dad, they’re probably hiding somewhere, biding their time and planning the most epic rescue mission the world has ever seen!’ he says while grinning half-heartedly at his best friend.

He sees the doubt hidden in the depth of his friends eyes, the lingering fear and hopelessness, and he feels his heart crack a little bit at the sight of it. He takes his friends hand and squeezes it reassuringly, the gesture only dimmed slightly by the clinging of the shackles between them.

‘Seriously, I’m sure they’re fine.’ He looks at his friend intently. ‘and so will we. I promise Scotty, we’re gonna make it out of here, I promise’.

‘I know’, his friends sighs. ‘But how?’.

Stiles lets out a sigh too. ‘I don’t know man. But I promise we’ll figure it out, we always do, don’t we?’

‘Yeah we do’.

And with that they fell into silence once more. Because what else was there left to say? There was no way they were gonna get out of here any time soon with Scott still shackled to the wall and Stiles in the state he was in. They’ll just have to bide their time and hold on a little while longer.

So Stiles does the only thing he can do right now, he snuggles a bit closer against his best friend and tightens his grip op Scotts arm, hoping the little bit of contact will be enough comfort for now.

 

Stiles hadn’t even realized he’d fallen asleep, but he must have done so because the next thing he remembers is waking up to the sound of the door unlocking.

He stiffens and feels his friend beside him do the same. He tries to push himself up a bit, to sit up a bit straighter before the door opens completely. Scott must have had the same idea because his friend is already up an standing, pulling the chains and trying to look as menacing as he can be without the use of his wolfy powers.

Its Kate who walks in when the door finally opens and Stiles can actually _feel_ the sub-vocal growl Scott lets out when she does so.

‘What do you want!’, his friend growls out while trying to move a little bit more in front of Stiles, blocking him from view.

And Stiles is grateful for it. He’s still sitting against the wall and he’s not sure if he could muster up the strength to stand even if he wanted to. So he leaves the talking to Scott for now, all the while watching Kate intently.

‘Aww….. don’t get your panty’s all in a twist Scotty boy….’, she drawls. ‘I just wanted to check up on you guys, see how you’re doing’. She steps fully into the room now and closes the door behind her.

‘Don’t play games with us!’, Scott growls angrily. ‘Just tell us what you want from us!’.

‘Fine’, Kate spits out angrily. ‘Straight to the point then’, she walks over a little bit closer to Scott. ‘What I want is for you to tell me who bit you, and for one of you to tell me what kind of supernatural Stiles is. Hasn’t poor Stiles suffered enough already?’, she asks while looking back over at him with fake sympathy. ‘Just answer my question and this will all stop..’.

‘We can’t tell you what we don’t know!’, Scott growls out between clenched teeth, while stepping a little bit closer to Stiles.

Kate sights, shaking her head regretfully, before calling back at the door. Soon after the door opens again and the two guards from earlier step into the room. ‘Get him back up on the table again’, she says while pointing her finger at Stiles.

Scott growls at that. ‘No! You’re not taking him again!’, he yells while standing in front of Stiles protectively. And Stiles is so grateful for that, up until the moment Kate pulls a gun and points it at Scott.

‘Stiles, come over here or I will shoot Scott!’, she says threateningly. ‘And believe me honey, I’ve dealt with supernaturals for a long time now, he won’t heal from this one’.

The cold look in her eyes is enough to tell Stiles she isn’t lying. So he gathers all his strength and pulls himself up against the wall. He manages one wobbly step forward before Scott seems to realize what he’s trying to do.

‘No!, No, Stiles! Don’t do this! Don’t…. don’t….’ his friend looks at him pleadingly, seemingly with a loss for words, not knowing what to ask for, but also not willing to give up so easily. ‘Stiles, _please!_ ’

‘It’s okay Scotty’, he rasps out, while nudging his friend out of the way gently. ‘It’s gonna be okay’, he looks at his friend reassuringly, ‘trust me’.

And with that Scotts resolve seems to break, although haltingly. He steps aside, letting the guards pass him by with balled fists and gritted teeth, a look of angry frustration marring his face.

The guards walk over to Stiles and drag him back over to the table none too gently. They step back to the door after they finish putting him back on the table and tightening the straps around his arms and legs.

Kate walks over to him while looking at Scott again. ‘Last chance Scott, answer my question and you can save your friend a lot of pain’, she says while trailing a single finger down Stiles’ injured arm, only stopping when she reaches his middle finger, gripping it tightly.

‘You’ve made up your mind then’, she nods at Scott when he doesn’t answer. ‘Remember, this is on you…’. And with that she tightens her grip on his finger before snapping it with a twist of her hand.

The sound of the bone breaking is deafening, bouncing around against the walls of the small cell, before it’s drowned out by the sound of screaming.

Stiles can’t help it. He tried to hold it in, be all manly and stoic about it. But it feels like she ripped his whole arm right off and he can do nothing but scream in utter agony. When the sound finally dies down, he’s left panting and shivering against the cold metal table.

He takes in a shuddering breath before looking over at Scott. His friend looks devastated, and Stiles can’t help but try to ease his mind. ‘It’s okay Scotty, it’s okay…’, he whispers.

‘No it’s not’, comes the cold, hard voice from his left. ‘One of you better answer my question, or there’ll be nine more of those’, she says while trailing her finger over his remaining four fingers tauntingly before settling on his ring finger. ‘Your choice’, she says while looking at him piercingly.

And Stiles knows he can’t let Scott be the one to make the decision again. So he clamps his lips shut and shakes his head minutely, before closing his eyes and bracing himself for what’s to come next.

He jerks violently at the sound of the door opening again, but the pain he expected never comes. So he opens his eyes back up tentatively, looking down at where Kate is still gripping his finger tightly. But she’s not moving, distracted by the guard who came in the room. The guard walks over to Kate and whispers something in her ear.

It’s not something she wanted to hear because there is a flash of anger crossing her face, there one second and gone the next. But Stiles had seen it none the less.

She sights before letting go of Stiles’ finger, and points at Scott. ‘Take him back to his own room’, she orders the two guards still standing by the door. Stiles sees Scott hesitate for a moment. Not willing to leave his friend, but also not wanting to create more trouble for him. In the end Scott must have decided that cooperating is the best course of action for now, because he comes willingly when the guards beckon him forward, guiding him out of the room after unchaining him.

Stiles is too focused on his friend that he doesn’t notice Kate taking hold of his ring finger again. ‘Wait a second’, she calls out to the guards holding Scott, and they stop halfway through the door. ‘I must go now, but we’ll continue this conversation later. And in the mean time I’ll give you guys both something to think about. Maybe next time you’ll be a little more cooperative…’.

And with that she pulls his ring finger back harshly. Only this time Stiles barely registers the sound of his finger breaking before the world goes mercifully black.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos = Love ;)


End file.
